portent
Other forms: portents
While you might love crows, your father will shudder when he sees them if he superstitiously believes they're a portent — a sign or warning — of death.
A portent is an omen of something momentous, which can be good, but is more often negative. You can use portent to mean a magical foretelling or symbol, but you can also use it to talk about something real, the way you could describe big, dark storm clouds as a portent of a thunderstorm.
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a sign of something about to happensynonyms: omen, presage, prodigy, prognostic, prognosticationtypes:auspicea favorable omenforebodingan unfavorable omendeath knellan omen of death or destructiontype of:augury, foretoken, preindication, signan event that is experienced as indicating important things to come
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Vocabulary lists containing portent
Looking to build your vocabulary? Then practice this list of 300 "hard words" — the kind that used to be tested on the SAT before 2016. If you're a high school student prepping for the SAT, check out Vocabulary.com's Roadmap to the SAT, which focuses on the vocabulary you'll need to ace today's SAT test.
After having a child out of wedlock, Hester Prynne is shunned by her Puritan community and forced to wear a scarlet "A" on her clothing — but Hester is not the only one who has transgressed. This classic novel explores guilt, sin, and hypocrisy.
Influenced by the duplicitous Iago, Othello, a Moorish general in the Venetian army, begins to doubt his wife's faithfulness.