Portentous

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(pronounced pawr-ten-tus) adjective

Definition

1. of the nature of or constituting a portent; ominous. 2. wondrous; arousing awe; eliciting amazement; prodigious. 3. suggestive of something grave, weighty. 4. pretentiously or self-importantly solemn; pompous; ponderous.

(Helpful tip: Sense 1, which implies a forewarning of disaster or catastrophe, is now less common.)

Main Example

• Just about everyone ponders, at one time or another, the question of what has been humankind's greatest accomplishment so far. Here is this author's take, as stated in one of his recent speeches: "Among all of mankind's accomplishments up to now, I personally believe NASA's Apollo program and the resulting moon landings was the most prodigious...the most portentous."

Workplace Examples

• On the issue of climate change, what I find most disturbing is the rate at which our planet is warming. Just the other day, there was this portentous news story in which an official from the National Center for Atmospheric Research was quoted as saying that the ratio of record highs to record lows, which was around one-to-one until the 1970s, had risen to about two-to-one during the last decade, and continues to be on an upward trajectory. Bottom line: an increasing frequency and duration of heat waves.

• One of the most powerful arguments for believing in God was that made by the late William F. Buckley Jr. in one of NPR's "This I Believe" segments. Of course, I didn't approve of the portentous language he used to make his point. Even though it was meant for a radio listening audience, the two-minute utterance was packed with big, incomprehensible words and phrases such as "profundity," "opiate," "felicitous congeries," "jingoistic patrons," "animadversion," and the like.

Other Examples

• the portentous sights as you walk along the North or South Rim of the Grand Canyon
• Bigfoot, the portentous apelike monster which supposedly inhabits forests of the Pacific Northwest and is said to weigh in excess of 500 pounds
• one of the more portentous decisions Barack Obama had to make as president: sending a squadron of CIA-led Navy SEALS deep into Pakistan, in the dead of night, to capture or kill Osama bin Laden
• at a public hearing on a proposed light rail project, a concerned citizen failing to resonate with the audience because of his abstract and portentously expressed reasons for opposing the plan
• on being asked by Charlie Rose what he would like his body of work to stand for, the late Stephen Jay Gould saying: "The importance of evolution is the most exciting, portentous idea. It's full of inferences and enlightenment."

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