portentous
adjective
Simple meaning
Of momentous or ominous significance.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
pawrtehntuhsSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
pɔɹˈtɛntəs
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
adjective
Of momentous or ominous significance.
Ominously prophetic.
Puffed up with vanity.
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: Of momentous or ominous significance.
Used this way, portentous is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It suits considered writing and prepared speech.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- Serious and weighty
- Usage feel
- Formal and precise
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin
Synonyms
Sense: of momentous or ominous significance
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Words can change meaning depending on context.
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.