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] --
The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48
portentous
adj 1: of momentous or ominous significance; "such a
portentous...monster raised all my curiosity"- Herman
Melville; "a prodigious vision" [syn: prodigious]
2: of ominous significance [syn: fateful, foreboding(a)]
3: puffed up with vanity; "a grandiloquent and boastful
manner"; "overblown oratory"; "a pompous speech";
"pseudo-scientific gobbledygook and pontifical hooey"-
Newsweek [syn: grandiloquent, overblown, pompous, pontifical]
WordNet (r) 2.0
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
Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0
fateful, foreboding(a), grandiloquent, overblown, pompous, pontifical, prodigious
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