ominous
Americanadjective
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portending evil or harm; foreboding; threatening; inauspicious.
an ominous bank of dark clouds.
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indicating the nature of a future event, for good or evil; having the significance of an omen; being a portent.
Some of these events were immediately ominous, while others only later revealed themselves as such.
adjective
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foreboding evil
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serving as or having significance as an omen
Related Words
Ominous, portentous, threatening, menacing, fateful are adjectives describing that which forebodes a serious, significant, and often harmful outcome. Ominous, derived from omen “a predictor of outcomes,” usually suggests evil or damaging eventualities: ominous storm clouds; an ominous silence. Portentous, although it may suggest evil results, often stresses a momentous or very important outcome: a portentous moment in history; a portentous escalation of hostilities. Threatening may suggest calamity or great harm but sometimes mere unpleasantness: a threatening rumble from the volcano; A threatening look from his brother caused him to quickly change the subject. Menacing always suggests serious damage as an outcome: He advanced with a menacing swagger. Fateful most often stresses the great or decisive importance of what it describes: a fateful encounter between two future leaders; a fateful day that changed our world.
Other Word Forms
- ominously adverb
- ominousness noun
- unominous adjective
- unominously adverb
- unominousness noun
Etymology
Origin of ominous
First recorded in 1580–90; from Latin ōminōsus “portentous,” equivalent to ōmin- (stem of ōmen ) + -ōsus; omen, -ous
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.
The parallels with the 1970s are ominous: Inflation surges and then retreats but gets stuck a bit too high.
Goldhaber’s reimagining of an ominous relic from an earlier era of media consumption may capture for audiences the sensation, for better or worse, of what life can be like in an ultra-connected world.
From Los Angeles Times
But if you thirst for a sober-minded investigation into this ominous tool — one with an approach that treats you like the intelligent being you are — you’ll have to wait for AI doc 2.0.
From Los Angeles Times
Inspired by a novella by Soviet physicist Georgy Demidov, who chronicled his own harrowing experiences in the gulag from the late 1930s until the early 1950s, “Two Prosecutors” unfolds with ominous efficiency.
From Los Angeles Times
Around this time last year, they started sending a more ominous message.
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.
