portentous

/pɔrˈtɛntəs/

The black crows slowly circling the front entrance to your office building at 6:00 a.m. may have a portentous quality, meaning it seems like they’re an omen indicating something bad will happen.

Use the adjective portentous to describe something that seems to be a sign related to a future event — generally an ominous sign. Something that is portentous often seems to hint at or warn of a future disaster. For example, in a movie ominous music playing in the background while someone turns a dark corner can have a portentous quality, predicting doom for the hapless character.

Definitions of portentous

1. adjective

   of momentous or ominous significance
   “"such a portentous...monster raised all my curiosity"- Herman Melville”

   synonyms: prodigious

   important, significant

   important in effect or meaning
2. adjective

   ominously prophetic
   synonyms: fateful, foreboding

   prophetic, prophetical

   foretelling events as if by supernatural intervention
3. adjective

   puffed up with vanity
   synonyms: grandiloquent, overblown, pompous, pontifical

   pretentious

   making claim to or creating an appearance of (often undeserved) importance or distinction