ominous
adjective
portending evil or harm; foreboding; threatening; inauspicious.
ominousness
-
a word derived from
ominous.
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.
Traditional Latin prayers sung by men have a heavy, chant-like ominousness; the two female angels who appear in the visions convey an urgent, slightly dissonant ecstasy.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jan. 12, 2026
Kaufmann translated it as “tremendous,” which takes away too much of the ominousness.
From The New Yorker ● Oct. 7, 2019
If the first half boasts a shimmering ingenuity and ominousness, the second half goes down in a Hindenburg of repetition and falsity and tedium.
From Washington Post ● Apr. 4, 2018
Only Jeffrey Roth — an Oswald with the cool, smiling ominousness of Anthony Perkins in “Psycho” — is suitably creepy.
From New York Times ● Nov. 6, 2017
First a terrible ominousness would fill the air.
From "All the Light We Cannot See" by Anthony Doerr
