foreboding
Americannoun
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forebodings
plural
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a prediction; portent.
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a strong inner feeling or notion of a future misfortune, evil, etc.; presentiment.
adjective
noun
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a feeling of impending evil, disaster, etc
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an omen or portent
adjective
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of foreboding
1350–1400; Middle English forbodyng (noun); see forebode, -ing 1, -ing 2
Explanation
When you get a foreboding, you get a sense that something bad is going to happen. A foreboding is a foretelling, a sign or a glimpse, that "something wicked this way comes" — or might come. If something doesn’t "bode" well, it means that the future doesn't look good. A foreboding is a glimpse or a feeling that bad things are going to happen. It's a premonition, or look into the future. Most times foreboding implies that something evil is coming, but sometimes it's used for anything bad up ahead, as in "she had a foreboding that the trip would get canceled due to the hurricane." Even if the future looks bright, a foreboding casts dread over what's ahead.
Vocabulary lists containing foreboding
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Power Prefix: fore-
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
In Atlanta, her visionary cosmologies read as foreboding, otherworldly—paradise lost.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 30, 2026
Since then, he feels a sense of foreboding whenever dark clouds signal the onset of another storm.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 14, 2026
But Yangskit says she had a strange sense of foreboding that night: "I wondered if I was ever going to see him again."
From BBC ● Aug. 8, 2026
But a 0.1-percent dip in food services sales could reflect that people are opting to drive less -- a foreboding sign for broader spending in the services sector.
From Barron's ● Jun. 17, 2026
I’ve often thought I’d like the parrot gone, yet the thought of his absence brings me foreboding.
From "Challenger Deep" by Neal Shusterman
Khalid Aljabri recalled that his father had forebodings of the trouble ahead.
From Washington Post ● May 28, 2020
The French government is relieved that its worst forebodings about the protests did not come to pass.
From BBC ● Dec. 8, 2018
The sounds could be heard as flashbacks or as forebodings.
From The New Yorker ● Jun. 25, 2018
This included a woman, her young child with a doll, the dead cat and forebodings about nuclear disaster and wave/particle duality.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 9, 2014
You will rejoice to hear that no disaster has accompanied the commencement of an enterprise which you have regarded with such evil forebodings.
From "Frankenstein" by Mary Shelley
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Get a wordDefinitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
