Hypertext Webster Gateway: "portentous"
From Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913) (web1913)
Portentous \Por*tent"ous\, a. [L. portentosus.]
1. Of the nature of a portent; containing portents;
foreshadowing, esp. foreshadowing ill; ominous.
For, I believe, they are portentous things. --Shak.
Victories of strange and almost portentous splendor.
--Macaulay.
2. Hence: Monstrous; prodigious; wonderful; dreadful; as, a
beast of portentous size. --Roscommon. --
{Por*tent"ous*ly}, adv. -- {Por*tent"ous*ness}, n.
From WordNet (r) 1.7 (wn)
portentous
adj 1: of momentous or ominous significance; "such a
portentous...monster raised all my curiosity"- Herman
Melville; "a prodigious vision" [syn: {prodigious}]
2: of ominous significance [syn: {fateful}, {foreboding(a)}]
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}]
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