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ominous
in a sentence

show 189 more with this conextual meaning
  • The sharp sound as the gloves snapped into place against his wrists seemed ominous to me.   (source)
    ominous = threatening (foreshadowing evil)
  • As he was shaking the cold out of his legs, a huge gust of wind came splashing against the tree above us, heaving over a branch and knocking it against one of the electric wires. "That's not good," Mondo said, nodding ominously at the tree.   (source)
    ominously = suggestive of bad things to come
  • In the living room BENEATHA sits at the table, still surrounded by the now almost ominous packing crates.   (source)
    ominous = threatening (suggestive of, or foreshadowing bad things to come)
  • ...the ruins of towers: they had an ominous look.   (source)
    ominous = threatening or suggestive of evil or bad things
  • His voice was harsh and ominous.   (source)
    ominous = suggestive of bad things to come
  • He and his company went on, their weapons clinking, chain-mail jangling, solemn and ominous as drums.   (source)
    ominous = threatening or suggestive of bad things to come
  • "General, I understood General Lee to say that the enemy would be up on the ridge back there..."
    Longstreet said, "That's correct."
    McLaws hummed, scratched his face.
    "Well?" Longstreet said ominously.
    "Well, the enemy's right in front of me..."   (source)
    ominously = suggesting/expecting bad things
  • and see ominous clouds of inferiority beginning to form in her little mental sky,   (source)
    ominous = suggestive of bad things to come
  • The landlubber clergy tried desperately to find a comfortable way to perch on the one-by-four crosspieces that formed the seats, the water gurgling ominously, Jim's torch seeking the log jams and the snags.   (source)
    ominously = in a threatening manner
  • He said ominously, "Well, he better watch out for Lennie. Lennie ain't no fighter, but Lennie's strong and quick and Lennie don't know no rules."   (source)
    ominously = in a manner that suggests danger
  • Here she was stopped by an ominous glance from Miss Jones, followed immediately by the smile.   (source)
    ominous = threatening
  • Late the next afternoon all the ominous, heavy gloom I felt inside of me seemed to come out in the weather.   (source)
    ominous = threatening, suggestive of, or foreshadowing bad things to come
  • Had he contented himself with looking fierce and ominous, all would have been well.   (source)
    ominous = threatening
  • he remarked, ominously calm.   (source)
    ominously = in a threatening manner
  • It was the same kind of ominous voice; but these men could by no stretch of imagination be called enemies.   (source)
    ominous = threatening of bad things to come
  • A house standing placidly in distant fields had to him an ominous look.   (source)
    ominous = threatening or suggestive of bad things to come
  • And Gilgamesh lamented, 'Now I will pray to the great gods, for my friend had an ominous dream.'   (source)
    ominous = suggestive of bad things to come
  • My memories of them became ominous, indicting.†   (source)
  • It had been crushed among the excitement and was bleeding dark and ominous through his sock.†   (source)
  • I thanked him as I helped Baba out of the office, thinking that now I had to live a whole week with this new word, "mass," an even more ominous word than "suspicious."†   (source)
  • As if the daytime trees and flowers and stones had gone to bed and sent slightly more ominous versions of themselves to take their places.†   (source)
  • But the positive thoughts would give way to negative thoughts, and the negative thoughts seemed to swoop into her mind the way a big flock of black crows takes over the landscape, sitting thick in the trees and on the fence rails and lawns, staring at you in ominous silence.†   (source)
  • Their hunger dimmed, an ominous sign.†   (source)
  • The trees had been stripped by a recent wind of their white covering of frost, and they seemed to lean toward each other, black and ominous, in the fading light.†   (source)
  • Now it was ominous.†   (source)
  • "If he don't," said Little Man ominously, "I betcha Uncle Hammer'll teach that ole Mr. Simms a thing or two.†   (source)
  • It's ominous, this delay.†   (source)
  • Despite the ominous warnings from my female relatives that noses keep growing well into adulthood, I managed to graduate from college, get married, and have children, all with my original nose.†   (source)
  • That sounded ominous, and I stopped wiping the pot I was drying.†   (source)
  • He believed in the influence of early frosts and lingering summers, of ominous clouds and delicate rains, of fog and sunshine and snowfall.†   (source)
  • It was an ominous sign, as she never made unannounced visits to our Preble County home.†   (source)
  • An ominous feeling hung over them, heavy as a storm cloud.†   (source)
  • Though literally on our back doorstep, the school loomed like some strange, ominous fortress throughout the first weeks of the investigation.†   (source)
  • He said it quietly enough that Thomas didn't think anyone else heard, but it sounded ominous.†   (source)
  • Dalio and I got off the ground, looked at each other, and broke into a sprint, running away from the car now sitting ominously a few yards from us.†   (source)
  • Then I heard a low, ominous hum, followed by a piece of music from that film's score: "Also Sprach Zarathustra" by Richard Strauss.†   (source)
  • By doing this, by badgering him with my eyes (for, of course, with all animals, including us, to stare is an aggressive act) and by sounding that whistle cry that had such ominous associations in his mind, I made clear to Richard Parker that it was my right, my lordly right, to fondle and sniff his feces if I wanted to.†   (source)
  • On the fourth day—no, it must have been the fifth—an ominous silence pressed in on the room as the fever penetrated deeper.†   (source)
  • The castle was dark save the windows at the very top of the building, which glowed ominously.†   (source)
  • I walked down a tunneled corridor to the legal visitation area, each step echoing ominously across the spotless tiled floor.†   (source)
  • Mum and Dad were already in the hall, standing side by side in the ominous way they used to do when we sneaked back late from a night out.†   (source)
  • It was thick and carried its title in ominous black letters: THE POPULATION DISASTER.†   (source)
  • By this gloomy route, he was leading them to what he had called their "final testing place," which struck Reynie as having a particularly ominous sound.†   (source)
  • It was an ominous sign.†   (source)
  • There was something ominous to Meg in the very compactness of the room, as though the walls, the ceiling, the floor might move together and crush anybody rash enough to enter.†   (source)
  • Slow, ominous strides, coming right toward them.†   (source)
  • The song concludes with ominous words as the rabbi warns: When you grow older, children,
    You will understand
    How many tears lie in these letters
    And how much lament.
    In the evenings, when I sang this song with the Lansman family, those words seemed like ancient history.†   (source)
  • They reminded me of mushrooms that suddenly appear after a wet night, uncannily white and fully formed, miraculous but ominous.†   (source)
  • He didn't seem to notice their ominous surroundings, or if he did, he hid it far better.†   (source)
  • The oncoming hurricane (fifth one this year) shows its first signs as soon as Thomas and I step out onto the streets—an ominous gale, a gust of ice-cold wind, startling in the otherwise humid air.†   (source)
  • Hester's damage to the rose garden was surely of the stature of a tradition; her absence, and Owen's, seemed ominous to me.†   (source)
  • When she got to the Director of Civil Engineering and read out Dad's name, the crowd buzzed ominously.†   (source)
  • First a terrible ominousness would fill the air.†   (source)
  • Ominously, she did not vary her tone.†   (source)
  • Dodge shot a spray of razor-cards at him, but the beast was too fast and leaped into the crystal, its violent internal motions causing the entire Mount Isolation fortress to shake ominously, threatening collapse, when— The noise stopped.†   (source)
  • The time has come (ominous musical crescendo) for some missions!†   (source)
  • "One," he said slowly and ominously.†   (source)
  • But when Robb asked for news of their uncle Benjen, the black brothers grew ominously quiet.†   (source)
  • A white, ominous eye transfixed upon her.†   (source)
  • I ran down the stairs and into the parlor where Weylin lay on a sofa, ominously still and silent.†   (source)
  • Sometimes he ended up in the hospital, but more often than not, his fighting landed him in solitary confinement, a dark hole with dirt walls ominously similar to the basement where Ethel once locked him as a child.†   (source)
  • We lay there, stiff as boards, staring at the ceiling, listening to the ominous crashing and bumping-around.†   (source)
  • And then she remembered, in its entirety, an ominous sentence from TERRIBLE THINGS!†   (source)
  • He raises his wand ominously.†   (source)
  • The troll lifted massive shaggy shoulders, its retractable claws sliding out with an ominous schiiick.†   (source)
  • She thought that to children adult motives and actions must seem as bulking and ominous as dangerous animals seen in the shadows of a dark forest.†   (source)
  • There was an ominous silence in the store.†   (source)
  • Its dark, ominous look made Eragon's scalp tingle.†   (source)
  • The cheeriness of the place now seemed ominous, a facade hiding a darker truth.†   (source)
  • Through squinted eyes I look into the clouds—heavy, dark, ominous—swirling in small concentric circles and, in the center, the center I'm trying mightily to reach, a face begins to form.†   (source)
  • Exorcists and lectors appeared in the doorway, their black robes with red trim an ominous echo of the bishop.†   (source)
  • It was an ominous dark redbrick building behind a tall metal gate.†   (source)
  • Next Chicago's Chemical National Bank ceased operation, a closure that seemed particularly ominous to fair officials because Chemical alone had won congressional approval to open a branch at the world's fair, in no less central a location than the Administration Building.†   (source)
  • "Mercer!" she said, using a voice as ominous as she could muster.†   (source)
  • "We must learn to control this," Quentin said ominously.†   (source)
  • Almost every night, a Domino's deliveryman winds his way up the lonely Cheyenne Mountain Road, past the ominous DEADLY FORCE AUTHORIZED signs, past the security checkpoint at the entrance of the base, driving toward the heavily guarded North Portal, tucked behind chain link and barbed wire.†   (source)
  • It's all so serious, so ominous.†   (source)
  • Drive," she said, and it didn't take an astrophysicist to know the ominous form at the wheel was Virgil Byrnes.†   (source)
  • Then I tap my pencil on the table to indicate time passing ominously.†   (source)
  • The clouds above her were massing more and more ominously.†   (source)
  • Her Leslie smile shifted suddenly and ominously into a scowl that silenced the storm.†   (source)
  • It was ominous at night.†   (source)
  • Church, who clearly wanted his stomach rubbed, muttered ominously.†   (source)
  • In fact, I know that a little earlier, some guests had actually commenced lunch out there, only to be interrupted by the appearance of ominous storm clouds.†   (source)
  • "That's far enough," he said ominously.†   (source)
  • This was wide-gaping-ominous open.†   (source)
  • He received the telegram as if it were the continuation of an ominous dream.†   (source)
  • Glass asked when it started to hum ominously.†   (source)
  • He will shift the conversation next to something seemingly innocent, but with ominous overtones, she told herself.†   (source)
  • The prairie here is huge but above it the hugeness of this ominous grey mass ready to descend is frightening.†   (source)
  • And yet the literature was filled with ominous caveats.†   (source)
  • The scene left Art with the ominous impression of an extreme, too-silent tidiness.†   (source)
  • That sounds ominous.†   (source)
  • Not nearly as ominous.†   (source)
  • Its walls stretched out gray and ominous for miles, and its spotlights beamed even into the Atlantic.†   (source)
  • In the Christian Methodist Episcopal Church the children's section was on the right, cater-cornered from the pew that held those ominous women called the Mothers of the Church.†   (source)
  • Whoever had put it in his mailbox  had already left one ominous note on his desk.†   (source)
  • There had been other ominous signs.†   (source)
  • Harald's house, the one closest to Blomkvist's cabin, looked gloomy and ominous with its blackout curtains drawn across all the windows.†   (source)
  • They just stared out the windows, ominously silent.†   (source)
  • My spine tingled ominously.†   (source)
  • That, Barbara Johnson felt, was what made his suicide so ominous.†   (source)
  • Then there were the ominous pasdar, a special police force that prowled about in small white four-wheel-drive Nissan trucks.†   (source)
  • At the same time he was aware of Ida's ominous humming in the kitchen.†   (source)
  • The ninety-day detention could be extended, as Vorster ominously explained, until "this side of eternity."†   (source)
  • Tock growled ominously; for he hated even the thought of demons.†   (source)
  • It stands in ominous desertion, as though there's a minefield around it.†   (source)
  • The structure rumbles ominously.†   (source)
  • On an adjacent wall there was a framed print of a bald eagle and an American flag floating majestically in the heavens against an ominous cloudscape.†   (source)
  • After the turbulence and drama of the protest, the city streets seemed flat, bleached of color, ominously ordinary.†   (source)
  • The vibration in the air is still there, but now it feels ominous, like the air is full of sharp things getting ready to drop.†   (source)
  • [Illustration: THE CAR WAS ALREADY LEAPING DOWN THE HILL AT A TREMENDOUS PACE] But on the word followed a more ominous crack, and there was the whine of a bullet above them.†   (source)
  • It's no use, miss," Artkin shouted, an ominous presence in the mask.†   (source)
  • He was surprised to discover the place completely empty; everyone was out in the street watching the fire's ominous glow.†   (source)
  • Massive men, their boots making the most stereotypically ominous storm-trooper noise, entered the Camp carrying restraints.†   (source)
  • Well, given some other preconditions, you might call this ominous.†   (source)
  • Augustus's mention of the pigs put the whole matter in a more ominous light.†   (source)
  • There was an ominous silence, but finally the police officer roared with laughter.†   (source)
  • The chapel doors seem to have grown taller and more ominous since vespers.†   (source)
  • "That sounds ominous," he said.†   (source)
  • The truck door swung open and there was a loud, ominous chuchunk.†   (source)
  • She came home," she said ominously (I could always tell when something big was coming), "because she had a nervous breakdown."†   (source)
  • "Just wait," our dia would say ominously.†   (source)
  • He couldn't have weighed more than one hundred pounds, but the first sheet buckled beneath him, bowing with an ominous screetch.†   (source)
  • Ramiro's friends dropped the four off at a spot outside Agua Prieta where the border fence transitioned from an ominous twenty-foot-tall wall of iron to a not-so-intimidating chain-link fence.†   (source)
  • The cardinals, the gray squirrels, the garden snakes, the butterflies, the ground hogs and rabbits—all the affectionate things that had peopled their lives ever since they were born became ominous signs of a presence that was searching for them, following them.†   (source)
  • But the ominous stirrings in the Far East, Smith insisted, suggested that a great many American boys must soon be trained to master a more exacting array of combat skills.†   (source)
  • Chapter Five The Corsair The storm line past Avalon was more roiling clouds and ominous thunder than rain and wind, although there was enough fury in it to push the Indigo Dragon across the waves like a toy.†   (source)
  • But even with Obasan's warmth and constant presence, there is an ominous sense of cold and absence—a darkness that has crept into the house as stealthily as Mrs. Sugimoto's dead animal fur piece she sometimes leaves on the living-room sofa.†   (source)
  • Esteban could recall the exact moment when he had realized that his sister was an ominous shadow in his life.†   (source)
  • 'Gimme eat, I said,' he ordered loudly in harsh tones that rumbled ominously through the silent tent like claps of distant thunder.†   (source)
  • Despite the ominous threat of Snow Flower's father's anger at any noise, I raised my voice to chant my feelings and recommendations, such as they were.†   (source)
  • No sign of flirty Siren cousins bearing lollipops and death grips, no unexplained Category 3 storms or ominous black clouds in the sky, not even a weird meal with Macon.†   (source)
  • I eyed the ominous shapes of overhanging pine branches as I moved along.†   (source)
  • Downstairs, the doorbell rang out in an ominous tone.†   (source)
  • The bombs drew closer until their reports were followed by lower, more ominous sounds—the dull thud of walls collapsing.†   (source)
  • While the families of Russian officers settled in throughout the land and radios intoned ominous reports of police functionaries who had replaced cashiered broadcasters, Tomas reeled through the streets of Prague from one glass of wine to the next like someone going from party to party.†   (source)
  • And for me, there are two ominous-looking window envelopes.†   (source)
  • THE PHONE RANG again a few minutes later, and this time the sound was ominous.†   (source)
  • He had begun taking his teaching with almost ominous seriousness these past months.†   (source)
  • The engine had never failed to start, but in the past few weeks Jake had noticed a delay, an extra turn or two that evoked an ominous warning that something bad was about to happen.†   (source)
  • An ominous silence had smothered the crowd.†   (source)
  • Or perhaps something more ominous had caused it.†   (source)
  • There was something in the brain that said: Sinister-looking valley + half-dead trees + ominous doorway = skulls in a bowl, or possibly on a stick.†   (source)
  • Its charges of traitorous rebellion, its ominous reference to "foreign assistance," assuredly ended any hope of reconciliation or a short war.†   (source)
  • "Get out of here," said the professor ominously.†   (source)
  • Dorothy gave an ominous shrug.†   (source)
  • Celia awakes to an ominous pattern of moonlight on her sheets.†   (source)
  • Yet under these circumstances, his interest in Joe seemed ominous.†   (source)
  • Or Hairy Jack was another ominous figure who might be called in …. and he'll take you off to his cave in the Fringes where all his family lives.†   (source)
  • Catch yourself in conversation with a vye, and it'll be using ominous words and violent metaphors—toying with its prey.†   (source)
  • More ominously, the president suspects that Monroe has visions of moving into the White House sometime soon.†   (source)
  • She thought of the ominous need of repairs, ominously neglected over the entire system.†   (source)
  • It was a name with an enviable, irreproachable past (unless one considered owning slaves reproachable, which, of course, the St. Croixs did not) but an uncertain future; it was a name ominously endangered by extinction.†   (source)
  • I'm not sure why, but that sounded strange, and a touch ominous.†   (source)
  • Sunday dawned cloudy and ominous, which was no surprise.†   (source)
  • The three exchanged ominous stares and a few easy swings as they felt each other out.†   (source)
  • She felt the injector pass over her arm and heaved up by the His eyes rolled back in his head; his head hit the floor with an ominous and satisfying thud.†   (source)
  • The end game," he added ominously.†   (source)
  • The response to this, over at the couch, was a distinctly ominous silence.†   (source)
  • "They're advancing in an almost …. ominous manner."†   (source)
  • But I knew how many tokens it took to play a game, and soon enough I had my hands on the buttons, and I could hear the music that had been the sound track to so many of the afternoons before I got sick—the ominous dun dun dun dun's that I used to hear in my sleep like echoes from an era that I hadn't even lived through, an early '80s electronic metronome.†   (source)
  • Now the same rambling streets and stone walls and enormous trees that had signified peace, though, turned ominous.†   (source)
  • "Ominous," Oscar would say afterward.†   (source)
  • If there was something ominous in the newscaster's tones, there was something torpid about our understanding of what was at stake; and if there was something culpable about such political ignorance in that time and place, there was something positive about the security I inhabited as a result of it.†   (source)
  • He diagnosed this negative intelligence as more ominous than almost anything that could have happened, and determined to awaken General Hawker if it persisted.†   (source)
  • The silence was so unnatural, so ominous, it weighed heavy on us.†   (source)
  • Presently he could hear, rising above the sound of the traffic, the ominous rhythm of chanting voices.†   (source)
  • "Anthony Giunghierrace," replied ominous Di Presso, "alias Tony Jaguar."†   (source)
  • And here his tone became faintly ominous, the forced civility tapering off into the baldest sarcasm I had heard in a long time.†   (source)
  • ANNIE [OMINOUS]: Yes.†   (source)
  • It is not for nothing that an ominous feeling often attaches itself to a procession.†   (source)
  • While I had never had to use one, I had always found the presence of a decompression chamber on the bottom a thing of comfort, despite its slightly ominous function for the sort of work we would be doing.†   (source)
  • A long, ominous shadow appears across the buildings, cast from a figure approaching off stage.†   (source)
  • Still, I saw nothing ominous in it.†   (source)
  • One was ominous—Hermaphrodites of the World, Arise!†   (source)
  • The child crashed through the woods, making the fallen leaves sound ominous under her feet.†   (source)
  • Yet the days were becoming ever more ominous, more grim.†   (source)
  • He was appalled by this inexplicable betrayal, and the hardness of her mouth as she struggled with self-astonishment and repentance was even more ominous.†   (source)
  • "You must not allow it so early," Kali said to me ominously, "or her legs will bend like hoops."†   (source)
  • Senator Benton could hardly mistake the ominous unwritten instructions of his state—in effect: "temper your independent tongue, sir, and stand by the South, or suffer the inevitable consequences."†   (source)
  • There's no one on this launch to swing it slowly, ominously… Oh God!†   (source)
  • As Billy went back to his work he said ominously, "You'd better ask him anyway."   (source)
    ominously = in a manner suggesting that something bad might happen
  • ...they looked seldom at it, for it was ominous and dreary even in the light of morning.   (source)
    ominous = suggestive of evil or something bad
  • the voice grew bleak and ominous "she thinned out and she skinnied out, an' she dropped that baby, dead."   (source)
    ominous = suggestive of evil or bad things to come
  • The music becomes ominous.   (source)
    ominous = threatening (suggestive of, or foreshadowing bad things to come)
  • There was something about the chair that gave Harry an ominous feeling.†   (source)
  • Thomas tried not to think about how ominous the last four words had been.†   (source)
  • An immense chimney, relic of a disused mill, reared up, shadowy and ominous.†   (source)
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