Crossword clues for portent
portent
Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Portent \Por*tent"\ (?; 277), n. [L. portentum. See Portend.]
That which portends, or foretoken; esp., that which portends
evil; a sign of coming calamity; an omen; a sign.
--Shak.
My loss by dire portents the god foretold.
--Dryden.
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
1560s, from Middle French portente, from Latin portentum "a sign, token, omen; monster, monstrosity," noun use of neuter of portentus, past participle of portendre (see portend).
Wiktionary
n. 1 Something that portends an event about to occur, especially an unfortunate or evil event; an omen. 2 A portending; significance; as, a howl of dire portent. 3 Something regarded as portentous; a marvel; prodigy.
WordNet
n. a sign of something about to happen; "he looked for an omen before going into battle" [syn: omen, presage, prognostic, prognostication, prodigy]
Wikipedia
Portent may refer to:
- Portent (divination), a phenomenon that is believed to foretell the future
- The Portent, a comic book
- USS Portent (AM-106), an Auk-class minesweeper
Usage examples of "portent".
The general type of mirage was not unlike some of the wilder forms observed and drawn by the arctic whaler Scoresby in 1820, but at this time and place, with those dark, unknown mountain peaks soaring stupendously ahead, that anomalous elder-world discovery in our minds, and the pall of probable disaster enveloping the greater part of our expedition, we all seemed to find in it a taint of latent malignity and infinitely evil portent.
Biddy said nothing to Peter Sherringham, but there was no flatness in a silence which heaved, as it were, with the fairest physiognomic portents.
To speak further of attire, an incident from which portents were drawn occurred during the year of my tribuneship in Rome.
So I was silent when the sun set fulgently over the far hills, and Kilderry blazed all red and gold in a flame that seemed a portent.
Les jeunes femmes portent secours aux vieilles et engagent la bataille avec les vieux.
The dead Soviet tanks were dark portents, warnings, do not come this way.
His death should involve massive detonations of light, special Mingolla-killing rays, astronomical portents.
Indeed, there were any number of signs, omens and portents for folk to gabble at in those first, horrified weeks after the news arrived.
Again I thought of leaving the carnival and finding a place where the omens and portents were less disturbing.
A service was currently in progress beneath a star-filled sky, which also bore two signs and several portents shining brightly at midheaven.
We needed to feel good, not merely to forget that death in Dallas the previous November but to distract ourselves from the signs and portents of death and destruction which, day by day, were growing in number.
And the coming action, by all the portents, was likely to be even brighter and breezier than the badinagein its own way.
She tossed answerless questions in her mind for so long that the blood-stained face appearing behind its glowing silver prison seemed another dire portent.
And the upper heaven was ateem with portents: whole armies of men skirmishing in the air, dragons, wild beasts, bloody streamers, blazing comets, fiery strakes, with other apparitions innumerable.
Before the consuls balloted for their provinces various portents were reported.