Ominous \Om"i*nous\, a. [L. ominosus, fr. omen. See Omen.]
Of or pertaining to an omen or to omens; being or exhibiting
an omen; significant; portentous; -- formerly used both in a
favorable and unfavorable sense; now chiefly in the latter;
foreboding or foreshowing evil; inauspicious; as, an ominous
dread.
[1913 Webster]
He had a good ominous name to have made a peace.
--Bacon.
[1913 Webster]
In the heathen worship of God, a sacrifice without a
heart was accounted ominous. --South.
[1913 Webster] --
The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48
ominous
adj 1: threatening or foreshadowing evil or tragic developments; "a
baleful look"; "forbidding thunderclouds"; "his tone
became menacing"; "ominous rumblings of discontent";
"sinister storm clouds"; "a sinister smile"; "his
threatening behavior"; "ugly black clouds"; "the
situation became ugly" [syn: baleful, forbidding,
menacing, minacious, minatory, sinister, threatening,
ugly]
2: 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, inauspicious]
WordNet (r) 2.0
131 Moby Thesaurus words for "ominous":
abusive, admonitory, apocalyptic, augural, bad, badly off, baleful,
baneful, black, bludgeoning, blustering, bodeful, boding,
browbeating, bulldozing, bullying, cautionary, comminatory,
corroding, corrosive, corrupting, corruptive, counterproductive,
damaging, dark, deadly, deleterious, denunciatory, depressed,
detrimental, dire, direful, disadvantageous, disserviceable,
distressing, donsie, doomful, dreary, evil, evil-starred, fatal,
fateful, fear-inspiring, forbidding, foreboding, foreshadowing,
foretelling, foretokening, fortuneless, funest, gloomy, grim,
hapless, harmful, hectoring, hostile, hurtful, ill, ill off,
ill-boding, ill-fated, ill-omened, ill-starred, imminent,
in adverse circumstances, inauspicious, indicative, inhospitable,
injurious, intimidating, lethal, lowering, luckless, malefic,
maleficent, malevolent, malign, malignant, mantic, meaningful,
menacing, minacious, minatory, mischievous, noisome, noxious,
of evil portent, oracular, out of luck, pernicious, planet-struck,
poisonous, portending, portentous, predictive, prejudicial,
premonitory, prognostic, prophetic, sad, scatheful, short of luck,
sibyllic, sinister, somber, star-crossed, terroristic, terrorizing,
threatening, threatful, toxic, unblessed, underprivileged,
unfavorable, unfortunate, unfriendly, unhappy, unlucky,
unpromising, unpropitious, unprosperous, unprovidential, untoward,
vaticinal, venenate, veneniferous, venenous, venomous, vicious,
virulent, warning
Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0
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