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
The Vocabulary.com Top 1000
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The SAT: Words to Capture Tone, List 2
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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:
“Lee” Xinyuan Li’s lighting heightens the sense of theatrical foreboding.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 11, 2026
Brook's first act of the day was a foreboding one for England.
From BBC ● Jun. 20, 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
In contrast, DeepSeek, a Chinese AI company, concluded its answers to a user’s questions about weapons selection with a foreboding farewell.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 3, 2026
‘It looks like a tomb,’ muttered Frodo, and bent forwards with a curious sense of foreboding, to look more closely at it.
From "The Fellowship of the Ring" by J.R.R. Tolkien
And there are less apocalyptic forebodings as well: unstoppable AI-powered hackers, massive global AI misinformation campaigns, rampant unemployment as artificial intelligence takes our jobs.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 25, 2023
Khalid Aljabri recalled that his father had forebodings of the trouble ahead.
From Washington Post ● May 28, 2020
Despite their forebodings, the referendum result shocked Irish officials.
From The Guardian ● Apr. 18, 2019
The French government is relieved that its worst forebodings about the protests did not come to pass.
From BBC ● Dec. 8, 2018
Still full of forebodings of a hard winter, he foraged about for what he was sure was the last edible stuff on the island: various seeds, dry berries, mushrooms.
From "Abel's Island" by William Steig
Definitions 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.
