Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. A phenomenon supposed to portend good or evil; a prophetic sign.
- n. Prognostication; portent: birds of ill omen.
- v. To be a prophetic sign of; portend.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. A casual event or occurrence supposed to portend good or evil; a sign or indication of some future event; a prognostic; an augury; a presage. See augur.
- n. Synonyms Omen, Portent, Sign, Presage, Prognostic, Augury, Foreboding. Omen and portent are the most weighty and supernatural of these words. Omen and sign are likely to refer to that which is more immediate, the others to the more remote. Omen and portent are external: presage and foreboding are internal and subjective; the others are either internal or external. Sign is the most general. Prognostic applies to the prophesying of states of health or kinds of weather, and is the only one of these words that implies a deduction of effect from the collation of causes. Presage and augury are generally favorable, portent and foreboding always unfavorable, the rest either favorable or unfavorable. Omen and augury are most suggestive of the ancient, practice of consulting the gods through priests or augurs. A foreboding may be mistaken; the others are presumably correct. All these words have considerable freedom in figurative use. See foretell, v. t.
- To prognosticate as an omen; give indication of the future; augur; betoken.
- To foresee or foretell, as by the aid of an omen; divine; predict.
Wiktionary
- n. Something which portends or is perceived to portend a good or evil event or circumstance in the future; an augury or foreboding.
- n. prophetic significance
- v. To be an omen of.
- v. To divine or predict from omens.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. An occurrence supposed to portend, or show the character of, some future event; any indication or action regarded as a foreshowing; a foreboding; a presage; an augury.
- v. To divine or to foreshow by signs or portents; to have omens or premonitions regarding; to predict; to augur.
WordNet 3.0
- n. a sign of something about to happen
- v. indicate by signs
Etymologies
- From Latin omen ("foreboding, omen"). (Wiktionary)
- Latin ōmen. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“Funny how your larpdip after omen is mild, while my larp dip is always the worste after omen.”
“Another ill omen is that this past winter was the first in memory that the airlines didn't have dead-of-winter, panicky sales to Europe.”
“Century City airs Tuesdays (how much of a good omen is that?) at 9: 00 pm EST on CBS ... and starts March 16th.”
“If it reach the ground in safety, without being broken, the omen is a most _un_favourable one.”
“He then wrote 'The Captive,' obtained an appointment to read it to the Princess of Wales, stumbled, like Cæsar, over a stool; the princess screamed, the omen was a true one -- 'The”
“The omen could be a dark one for the Obama administration heading into a mid-term election year.”
“From henceforth not the first classes, as in the times of Servius, but the prerogative, whether curia, century, or tribe, came first to the suffrage, whose vote was called omen proerogativum, and seldom failed to be leading to the rest of the tribes.”
“Events called omen of 'rightward shift' from '60s liberal radicalism here.”
“The omen was a picture that his friend Tony, a Christian Buddhist, had taken.”
“This really amused me, as I kept thinking it was some kind of omen -- or that if we could only rush in and grab the crock of gold at the end, it would make a nice contribution to the banking crisis.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘omen’.
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2nd part
prelude, ample, escalate, prototype, accession, acquisition, archives, zealot, indict, verdict, intimidating, timid and 454 more...
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On with their heads!
Words that make other words with the addition of one letter at the beginning. The resulting words are tagged "behead".
men, his, yes, any, iota, limb, aged, laid, land, lead, read, word and 327 more...
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GRE
predilection, explicit, appeal, supplication, appealing, enchanting, ovation, pertinent, apropos, opportunely, applicable, germane and 381 more...
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LIT - Iliad - key words and protagonists
abduct, abducting, abductor, Achaea, Achaean, Achilles, advise, Aegean, Aegean Sea, Aegina, aegis, Aeneas and 713 more...
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•Open List: Plural-Looking Singular N...
This came up on auroch, which is a misspelling of aurochs.
aurochs, series, corps, species, kudos, bitumen, caries, lens, crossroads, means, vertebra, scissors and 7 more...
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wl1
occult, necromancy, diabolism, conjure, metaphoric, metaphor, sorcerer, legerdemain, talisman, amulet, necrophobia, deftness and 135 more...
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pagecrusher's Words
fugu, ilk, rigamarole, superfluous, dearth, sacrosanct, moniker, bifurcate, villainous, onus, brazen, odin and 268 more...
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Lillyjames's Words
uncategorized words that I enjoy
replete, unabashed, dauntless, ubiquitous, fanged, blush, flush, murmur, mercurial, dishevelled, decrepit, raven and 146 more...
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GCI
spinster, maiden, happy-go-lucky, homonym, ill-at-ease, saw red, out of sorts, hot under the collar, taken aback, pen-names, alias, shoelaces and 378 more...
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practice 2
100 words
momentous, domicile, adroit, ingenious, dexterous, genius, brevity, decorum, propriety, dignity, err, blunder and 91 more...
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words found to be generally pleasing
alabaster, mahogany, camphor, coalesce, spire, portmanteau, gadabout, palaver, dolor, dour, dun, luminesce and 610 more...
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ADW1
obdurate, obstinate, behest, injunction, enjoin, circumspect, ensconce, discursive, lugubrious, doleful, somber, ken and 2476 more...
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O
octopus, obscure, oblivion, obvious, occult, oracle, omniverse, original, odd, other, over, orange and 13 more...
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Predictionary
EXPECTED vs. SURPRISE
aberration, exception, spontaneous, synchronicity, startle, waylay, prophecy, zemblanity, inadvertent, atavism, sui generis, anomaly and 127 more...
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Dictionary
dilettante, frostjack, perfunctory, impresario, paparazzi, pastiche, lollipop, Cymru, nub, bivouac, knapsack, hoodlum and 103 more...
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Words of the Day
glabella, chirotony, nook-shotten, crapehanger, filemot, swirlie, egosurf, lexiphanicism, Ruritanian, stichometry, chrononaut, faldstool and 2253 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for omen.

yarb Plural of Oman. Apr 6, 2011
oroboros Nemo in reverse. Jul 22, 2007