Search Result for "portentous": 
Wordnet 3.0

ADJECTIVE (3)

1. of momentous or ominous significance;
- Example: "such a portentous...monster raised all my curiosity"- Herman Melville
- Example: "a prodigious vision"
[syn: portentous, prodigious]

2. ominously prophetic;
[syn: fateful, foreboding(a), portentous]

3. puffed up with vanity;
- Example: "a grandiloquent and boastful manner"
- Example: "overblown oratory"
- Example: "a pompous speech"
- Example: "pseudo-scientific gobbledygook and pontifical hooey"- Newsweek
[syn: grandiloquent, overblown, pompous, pontifical, portentous]



The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48:

Portentous \Por*tent"ous\, a. [L. portentosus.]
   1. Of the nature of a portent; containing portents;
      foreshadowing, esp. foreshadowing ill; ominous.
      [1913 Webster]

            For, I believe, they are portentous things. --Shak.
      [1913 Webster]

            Victories of strange and almost portentous splendor.
                                                  --Macaulay.
      [1913 Webster]

   2. Hence: Monstrous; prodigious; wonderful; dreadful; as, a
      beast of portentous size. --Roscommon.
      [1913 Webster] -- Por*tent"ous*ly, adv. --
      Por*tent"ous*ness, n.
      [1913 Webster]


WordNet (r) 3.0 (2006):

portentous
    adj 1: of momentous or ominous significance; "such a
           portentous...monster raised all my curiosity"- Herman
           Melville; "a prodigious vision" [syn: portentous,
           prodigious]
    2: ominously prophetic [syn: fateful, foreboding(a),
       portentous]
    3: puffed up with vanity; "a grandiloquent and boastful manner";
       "overblown oratory"; "a pompous speech"; "pseudo-scientific
       gobbledygook and pontifical hooey"- Newsweek [syn:
       grandiloquent, overblown, pompous, pontifical,
       portentous]