Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • transitive verb To begin or inaugurate with a ceremony intended to bring good luck.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • To be an augury of; foreshow.
  • To initiate or inaugurate with ceremonies calculated to insure good luck.
  • To begin or introduce in a favorable or auspicious manner.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • adjective obsolete Auspicious.
  • transitive verb obsolete To foreshow; to foretoken.
  • transitive verb To give a favorable turn to in commencing; to inaugurate; -- a sense derived from the Roman practice of taking the auspicium, or inspection of birds, before undertaking any important business.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • verb To foreshow; to foretoken.
  • verb To give a favorable turn to in commencing; to inaugurate; -- a sense derived from the Roman practice of taking the auspicium, or inspection of birds, before undertaking any important business.
  • adjective Auspicious.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • verb indicate by signs
  • verb commence in a manner calculated to bring good luck

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Latin auspicārī, auspicāt-, from auspex, auspic-, bird augur; see auspice.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Latin auspicatus, past participle of auspicari "to take auspices", from auspex "bird seer", "augur", a contraction of avispex; avis "bird" + specere, spicere, "to view".

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Examples

Comments

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  • Philosophers routinely postulate

    And pundits are prone to prognosticate

    But if you’d be blessed

    A twitcher knows best,

    Whose passion is always to auspicate.

    June 13, 2018