Search Result for "portentous":
Wordnet 3.0
ADJECTIVE (3)
1. of momentous or ominous significance;
- Example: "such a portentous...monster raised all my curiosity"- Herman Melville
- Example: "a prodigious vision"
[syn: portentous, prodigious]
2. ominously prophetic;
[syn: fateful, foreboding(a), portentous]
3. puffed up with vanity;
- Example: "a grandiloquent and boastful manner"
- Example: "overblown oratory"
- Example: "a pompous speech"
- Example: "pseudo-scientific gobbledygook and pontifical hooey"- Newsweek
[syn: grandiloquent, overblown, pompous, pontifical, portentous]
The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48:
Portentous \Por*tent"ous\, a. [L. portentosus.] 1. Of the nature of a portent; containing portents; foreshadowing, esp. foreshadowing ill; ominous. [1913 Webster] For, I believe, they are portentous things. --Shak. [1913 Webster] Victories of strange and almost portentous splendor. --Macaulay. [1913 Webster] 2. Hence: Monstrous; prodigious; wonderful; dreadful; as, a beast of portentous size. --Roscommon. [1913 Webster] -- Por*tent"ous*ly, adv. -- Por*tent"ous*ness, n. [1913 Webster]Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0:
86 Moby Thesaurus words for "portentous": alarming, amazing, apocalyptic, astonishing, astounding, awe-inspiring, awesome, bad, baleful, baneful, black, bodeful, boding, dark, dire, doomful, dreary, earnest, evil, evil-starred, exceptional, extraordinary, fabulous, fantastic, fatal, fateful, foreboding, forerunning, forewarning, formidable, gloomy, grave, heavy, ill, ill-boding, ill-fated, ill-omened, ill-starred, imposing, inauspicious, indescribable, ineffable, legendary, lowering, marvelous, menacing, mind-boggling, miraculous, momentous, mythical, noteworthy, of evil portent, ominous, phenomenal, portending, precautional, precautionary, precursive, precursory, premonitory, prodigious, prodromal, prodromic, remarkable, serious, sinister, sober, solemn, somber, star-crossed, stupefying, stupendous, threatening, unexampled, unfavorable, unfortunate, unlucky, unparalleled, unprecedented, unpromising, unpropitious, unspeakable, untoward, weighty, wonderful, wondrous
