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What is "inauspicious"

Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
inauspicious
adjective
COLLOCATIONS FROM OTHER ENTRIES
an auspicious/inauspicious start (=one that makes it seem likely that something will be good or bad)
▪ His second term in office has got off to an extremely inauspicious start.
COLLOCATIONS FROM CORPUS
■ NOUN
start
▪ His second term in office has got off to an extremely inauspicious start.
▪ All three of us in the introductory course are auditors, an inauspicious start.
▪ From their inauspicious start, the pair could hardly be closer now.
▪ At Plymouth, despite an inauspicious start, a fine first spring had improved the Pilgrim spirits.
EXAMPLES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
▪ The loss was an inauspicious beginning to Darling's baseball career.
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ A member of the picturesque Aberfoyle Golf Club, with a respectable 15 handicap, Roy remembers his inauspicious beginnings.
▪ After an inauspicious début as part of a band, Amos went solo and relocated to London.
▪ All three of us in the introductory course are auditors, an inauspicious start.
▪ At Plymouth, despite an inauspicious start, a fine first spring had improved the Pilgrim spirits.
▪ His second term in office has got off to an extremely inauspicious start.
▪ In spite of an inauspicious beginning, Laura and Bernard succeeded within a few years in developing an absorbing private life in their adopted country.
▪ In view of these circumstances, the Combined Fleet plan for Midway could hardly have come at a more inauspicious moment.
▪ On those inauspicious occasions the candidate was Frank Robson, a market trader who lives near Darlington.
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Inauspicious

Inauspicious \In`aus*pi"cious\, a. Not auspicious; ill-omened; unfortunate; unlucky; unfavorable. ``Inauspicious stars.''
--Shak. ``Inauspicious love.''
--Dryden. -- In`aus*pi"cious*ly, adv. -- In`aus*pi"cious*ness, n.

Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
inauspicious

1590s, from in- (1) "not, opposite of" + auspicious. Related: Inauspiciously; inauspiciousness.

Wiktionary
inauspicious

a. Not auspicious; ill-omened; unfortunate; unlucky; unfavorable.

WordNet
inauspicious

  1. adj. not auspicious; boding ill [syn: unfortunate] [ant: auspicious]

  2. contrary to your interests or welfare; "adverse circumstances"; "made a place for themselves under the most untoward conditions" [syn: adverse, harmful, untoward]

  3. presaging ill-fortune; "ill omens"; "ill predictions"; "my words with inauspicious thunderings shook heaven"- P.B.Shelley; "a dead and ominous silence prevailed"; "a by-election at a time highly unpropitious for the Government" [syn: ill, ominous]

Usage examples of "inauspicious".

College of Augurs, no member of which was an authority on the subject of augury, as augurs were no more and no less than elected religious officials who were legally obliged to consult a chart before pronouncing the omens auspicious or inauspicious.

The trial of his new son-in-law never really eventuated, delayed by inauspicious omens, accusations of corrupt jurors, meetings of the Senate, agues and plagues.

It is bai Hulagh’s profound regret—his most profound regret, that this meeting is an inauspicious one, and that he makes the acquaintance of the People in such a sad moment.

Alas for your unlucky homefolk, it is an inauspicious time for innocents to stumble onto the star lanes.

If he had at once hazarded an engagement, I question whether, considering the temper of both the Romans and the enemy after the inauspicious leadership of the decemvirs, he would not have incurred a serious defeat.

You were born in the year of Water Tiger, an inauspicious beginning, but one you have apparently overcome.