| English Dictionary |
PORTENT
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| IPA (US): |  |
Dictionary entry overview: What does portent mean?
• PORTENT (noun)
The noun PORTENT has 1 sense:
1. a sign of something about to happen
Familiarity information: PORTENT used as a noun is very rare.
Dictionary entry details
Sense 1
Meaning:
A sign of something about to happen
Classified under:
Nouns denoting natural events
Synonyms:
omen; portent; presage; prodigy; prognostic; prognostication
Context example:
he looked for an omen before going into battle
Hypernyms ("portent" is a kind of...):
augury; foretoken; preindication; sign (an event that is experienced as indicating important things to come)
Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "portent"):
auspice (a favorable omen)
foreboding (an unfavorable omen)
death knell (an omen of death or destruction)
Derivation:
portend (indicate, as with a sign or an omen)
portentous (ominously prophetic)
portentous (of momentous or ominous significance)
Context examples
Still, now and then, I received a damping check to my cheerfulness; and was, in spite of myself, thrown back on the region of doubts and portents, and dark conjectures.
(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)
| Learn English with... Proverbs |
"The bird who has eaten cannot fly with the bird that is hungry." (Native American proverb, Omaha)
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"The one not dancing knows lots of songs." (Cypriot proverb)