portentiousadj.

1549 H. Latimer 1st Serm. before Kynges Grace f. 30 Of this to much commeth this monsterus & pertencious [1555 portentious] darth made by man, notwithstandyng God doth send vs plentifully the frutes of y^e earth mercifully, contrary vnto oure desertes.

1583 P. Stubbes Anat. Abuses 77 I greatlye desyre to know what abortyue Miscreant this is, for it is some portenteous mishapen monster, I am perswaded.

1779 H. Venn Conversion of Sinners 25 Seducing spirits, all active, and now multiplied to a portentious degree.

1882 Times 30 Aug. 8/2 In New York City alone the bank clearings in 1881, which represent the aggregate business of the city,..reached the portentious total of $48,565,818,212.

1906 Times 13 July 7/3 We do not propose to increase by a penny the expenditure on the Auxiliary Forces, which has already grown to portentious dimensions.

?c1550 tr. P. Vergil Eng. Hist. (1846) I. iv. 140 With these portentius thinges [L. iis portentis] albeit he was feared,..yeat, fearing noe deceite..went forward on his waye.

1600 P. Holland tr. Livy Rom. Hist. x. 387 Insomuch, as for the strangenes & extremitie therof, it [sc. a pestilence] was held for a prodigious & portentious sign beyond all course of nature, and reach of reason [L. portentoque iam similis clades erat].

1650 A. Bradstreet Tenth Muse 20 Portentious signes, of Famines, Plagues and Wars.

1774 T. Harrington Sci. Improved 93 Others think they [sc. comets] are sent as portentious warnings to mankind.

1819 J. B. White Triumph of Liberty i. i. 6 'Ere we meet again, may every dark portentious cloud, be swept from Columbia's happy clime.

1863 S. K. Holmes Jrnl. 16 July in Brokenburn (1955) 227 The earth, the air, the sky, all are a dull dead grey. The sun seems to emit neither heat nor light, gleaming with a red glare like a blood-red moon... Some think it portenteous, a sign of great victories or defeats.

1949 Sun (Baltimore) 21 Jan. 3/1 A portentious feature of this first telecast of a presidential inauguration was the use made of it in schools.

1956 Sun (Baltimore) 20 Feb. (B ed.) 8/3 If you were lucky enough to have seen them, you witnessed a portentious enlargement of mankind's field of knowledge.

2004 Newsday (N.Y.) (Nexis) 27 Feb. a28 In one of the most portentious developments since the war in Iraq ended last May, growing numbers of Iraqi women are demanding..equal participation in all aspects of life including government.

1859 Harper's Mag. Oct. 607/2 Science would exhaust its nomenclature in distinguishing them, and the traveler is happy to reflect that they are as yet unburdened with the portentious designations of studious Dryasdusts.

1896 E. Gosse Crit. Kit-kats 158 When it is added that her manner, from shyness, was of a portentious solemnity, that she had no small talk whatever..it will be understood that she was considered highly formidable by the young and the flighty.

1925 Sat. Rev. 21 Mar. 620/1 The recognized rules of procedure taught in all the best night schools hardly come in with their portentious beginnings, middles, and ends.

1958 Times 29 Oct. 3/1 A poem..was hammered home as a portentious statement containing the whole truth about the meaning, or meaninglessness, of life.

2004 Daily Mail (Nexis) 28 Aug. 9 Grunge-type heavy rock with portentious lyrics (that can barely be made out).