Definitions

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

  • noun A sense of impending evil or misfortune.
  • noun An evil omen; a portent.
  • adjective Ominous.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun Presage; foreshadowing; ominous suggestion.
  • noun Synonyms Portent, Prognostic, etc. See omen.

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

  • noun Presage of coming ill; expectation of misfortune.

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

  • noun A sense of evil to come.
  • noun An evil omen.
  • adjective Of ominous significance; serving as an ill omen; foretelling of harm or difficulty.
  • verb Present participle of forebode.

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

  • noun a feeling of evil to come
  • adjective ominously prophetic
  • noun an unfavorable omen

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

fore- +‎ boding

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Examples

  • With much foreboding from the other characters as to how the disaster has altered the healthy course of her mind, she commits herself to the path of revenge and vows to regain their inheritance from her bitter uncle or his invalid son.

    Wilkie Collins’ No Name « Tales from the Reading Room 2009

  • The word foreboding it self means premonition of something is coming, the video and scenes, I have purposely made them mysterious, a bit unconnected, yet a bit revealing the gist of the story of the curse, that something is coming, "The Curse," a confrontation, revealed in the end of the Unveiled version.

    Urban Vancouver - Vancouver's community blog 2008

  • Kazinski — the real foreboding is that a couple of minutes won’t really answer the question (unless the question is just did people ever use the term ‘police officer’ before 1960″?).

    The Volokh Conspiracy » Why Suspect When You Can Find Out? 2010

  • At the start of the quick-cut teaser, Crockett (Colin Farrell) says: "You understand the meaning of the word foreboding?

    Entertainment Weekly's PopWatch 2009

  • At the start of the quick-cut teaser, Crockett (Colin Farrell) says: "You understand the meaning of the word foreboding?

    Entertainment Weekly's PopWatch 2009

  • At the start of the quick-cut teaser, Crockett (Colin Farrell) says: "You understand the meaning of the word foreboding?

    Entertainment Weekly's PopWatch 2009

  • At the start of the quick-cut teaser, Crockett (Colin Farrell) says: "You understand the meaning of the word foreboding?

    Entertainment Weekly's PopWatch 2009

  • At the start of the quick-cut teaser, Crockett (Colin Farrell) says: "You understand the meaning of the word foreboding?

    Entertainment Weekly's PopWatch 2009

  • At the start of the quick-cut teaser, Crockett (Colin Farrell) says: "You understand the meaning of the word foreboding?

    Entertainment Weekly's PopWatch 2009

  • At the start of the quick-cut teaser, Crockett (Colin Farrell) says: "You understand the meaning of the word foreboding?

    Entertainment Weekly's PopWatch 2009

Comments

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  • I love using this word in conversation. It never fails to gets the point across.

    June 8, 2009