Portentous meaning

pôr-tĕn'təs
The definition of portentous is having the feeling of evil or foreboding.

An example of portentus is the mood created by spooky music at a haunted house.

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Portentous is defined as causing awe or wonder.

An example of portentous is the opening gate of a brightly lit carnival.

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Portentous means self-important.

An example of portentous is a professor’s lecture that is more about his own experiences than about teaching a subject.

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Of the nature of or constituting a portent; foreboding.
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Full of unspecifiable significance; exciting wonder and awe.
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That portends evil; ominous.
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Arousing awe or amazement; marvelous.
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Ponderous or pompous; self-important.
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Of momentous or ominous significance.
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Ominously prophetic.
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Puffed up with vanity.
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Marked by pompousness; pretentiously weighty.
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Portentous Sentence Examples

  • His passion for details not only swelled his volumes to a portentous size, but was fatal to artistic construction.

  • Meanwhile, it is certain that what is strange, new or portentous is regularly treated by all savages as sacred.

  • In their conceptions a single social imperfection assumed such portentous dimensions that it seemed to overcloud the whole heaven and threaten the world with ruin.

  • The Babylonians, according to Berossus, supposed that there were ten antediluvian kings, who they declared had reigned for the portentous period of 432,000 years: 432,000 years, however, it has been ingeniously pointed out by Oppert (Gott.

  • This is said to have hapC, pened in 356 B.C. on the October night on which Alexander the Great came into the world, and, as Hegesias said, the goddess herself was absent, assisting at the birth; but the exactness of this portentous synchronism makes the date suspect.

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Words near portentous in the Dictionary