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
But they also appeared to lack the obvious ominousness, or the solidarity with similar objects that would have allowed even amateur weather watchers to proclaim that rain was at hand.
From Washington Post ● Sep. 10, 2022
Kaufmann translated it as “tremendous,” which takes away too much of the ominousness.
From The New Yorker ● Oct. 7, 2019
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
