ominous

• POS: Adjective
• HYPHEN: om=i=nous

CIDE DICTIONARY

ominous, 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."  [1913 Webster]
"In the heathen worship of God, a sacrifice without a heart was accounted ominous."  [1913 Webster]

OXFORD DICTIONARY

ominous, adj.
1 threatening; indicating disaster or difficulty.
2 of evil omen; inauspicious.
3 giving or being an omen.

Derivative

ominously adv. ominousness n.

Etymology

L ominosus (as OMEN)

THESAURUS

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

ROGET THESAURUS

ominous

Danger

N danger, peril, insecurity, jeopardy, risk, hazard, venture, precariousness, slipperiness, instability, defenselessness, exposure, vulnerability, vulnerable point, heel of Achilles, forlorn hope, leap in the dark, road to ruin, faciles descensus Averni, hairbreadth escape, cause for alarm, source of danger, rock ahead, breakers ahead, storm brewing, clouds in the horizon, clouds gathering, warning, alarm, apprehension, in danger, endangered, fraught with danger, dangerous, hazardous, perilous, parlous, periculous, unsafe, unprotected &c (safe, protect), insecure, untrustworthy, built upon, sand, on a sandy basis, wildcat, defenseless, fenceless, guardless, harborless, unshielded, vulnerable, expugnable, exposed, open to, aux abois, at bay, on the wrong side of the wall, on a lee shore, on the rocks, at stake, in question, precarious, critical, ticklish, slippery, slippy, hanging by a thread, with a halter round one's neck, between the hammer and the anvil, between Scylla and Charybdis, between a rock and a hard place, between the devil and the deep blue sea, between two fires, on the edge of a precipice, on the brink of a precipice, on the verge of a precipice, on the edge of a volcano, in the lion's den, on slippery ground, under fire, not out of the wood, unwarned, unadmonished, unadvised, unprepared, off one's guard, tottering, unstable, unsteady, shaky, top-heavy, tumbledown, ramshackle, crumbling, waterlogged, helpless, guideless, in a bad way, reduced to the last extremity, at the last extremity, trembling in the balance, nodding to its fall, threatening, ominous, illomened, alarming, explosive, adventurous, incidit in Scyllam qui vult vitare Charybdim, nam tua res agitur paries dum proximus ardet.

Threat

N threat, menace, defiance, abuse, minacity, intimidation, denunciation, fulmination, commination, gathering clouds, threatening, menacing, minatory, minacious, comminatory, abusive, in terrorem, ominous, defiant, under the ban, Int, vae victis!, at your peril!, do your worst!.

Prediction

N prediction, announcement, program, programme, premonition, prognosis, prophecy, vaticination, mantology, prognostication, premonstration, augury, auguration, ariolation, hariolation, foreboding, aboding, bodement, abodement, omniation, omniousness, auspices, forecast, omen, horoscope, nativity, sooth, soothsaying, fortune telling, crystal gazing, divination, necromancy, astrology, horoscopy, judicial astrology, adytum prefiguration, prefigurement, prototype, type, oracle, predicting, predictive, prophetic, fatidic, fatidical, vaticinal, oracular, fatiloquent, haruspical, Sibylline, weatherwise, ominous, portentous, augurous, augurial, augural, auspicial, auspicious, prescious, monitory, extispicious, premonitory, significant of, pregnant with, bit with the fate of, coming events cast their shadows before, dicamus bona verba, there buds the promise of celestial worth, by oracles, Theomancy, by the Bible, Bibliomancy, by ghosts, Psychomancy, by crystal gazing, Crystallomancy, by shadows or manes, Sciomancy, by appearances in the air, Aeromancy, Chaomancy, by the stars at birth, Genethliacs, by meteors, Meteoromancy, by winds, Austromancy, by sacrificial appearances, Aruspicy, Haruspicy, Hieromancy, Hieroscopy, by the entrails of animals sacrificed, Extispicy, Hieromancy, by the entrails of a human sacrifice, Anthropomancy, by the entrails of fishes, Ichthyomancy, by sacrificial fire, Pyromancy, by red-hot iron, Sideromancy, by smoke from the altar, Capnomancy, by mice, Myomancy, by birds, Orniscopy, Ornithomancy, by a cock picking up grains, Alectryomancy, Alectromancy, by fishes, Ophiomancy, by herbs, Botanomancy, by water, Hydromancy, by fountains, Pegomancy, by a wand, Rhabdomancy, by dough of cakes, Crithomancy, by meal, Aleuromancy, Alphitomancy, by salt, Halomancy, by dice, Cleromancy, by arrows, Belomancy, by a balanced hatchet, Axinomancy, by a balanced sieve, Coscinomancy, by a suspended ring, Dactyliomancy, by dots made at random on paper, Geomancy, by precious stones, Lithomancy, by pebbles, Pessomancy, by pebbles drawn from a heap, Psephomancy, by mirrors, Catoptromancy, by writings in ashes, Tephramancy, by dreams, Oneiromancy, by the hand, Palmistry, Chiromancy, by nails reflecting the sun's rays, Onychomancy, by finger rings, Dactylomancy, by numbers, Arithmancy, by drawing lots, Sortilege, by passages in books, Stichomancy, by the letters forming the name of the person, Onomancy, Nomancy, by the features, Anthroposcopy, by the mode of laughing, Geloscopy, by ventriloquism, Gastromancy, by walking in a circle, Gyromancy, by dropping melted wax into water, Ceromancy, by currents, Bletonism, by the color and peculiarities of wine, Oenomancy.