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portent
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  • I would have to be a half-wit to ignore these portents.†   (source)
  • Lenny studies them a while, letting the moment draw meaning and portent.†   (source)
  • Jockeys say there is a small, bright sound when hooves clip against each other, a cheery portent of the wreck that is likely to follow.†   (source)
  • Victor, whose parents were illegal immigrants living near Bakersfield, California, was not only religious, but believed in portents of all kinds.†   (source)
  • "Regardless, my boy," Bert concluded, clapping Jack on the back, "it was not a gentle passing, nor one of good portents.†   (source)
  • Doc Daneeka had lost his head during Milo's bombardment; instead of running for cover, he had remained out in the open and performed his duty, slithering along the ground through shrapnel, strafing and incendiary bombs like a furtive, wily lizard from casualty to casualty, administering tourniquets, morphine, splints and sulfanilamide with a dark and doleful visage, never saying one word more than he had to and reading in each man's bluing wound a dreadful portent of his own decay.†   (source)
  • No human being can create new runes, or draw the sort of runes Clary can. Only angels have that power. And since Clary can do that—well, it seems like a portent. Things are changing. The Laws are changing. The old ways may never be the right ways again.†   (source)
  • Days filled with great portent.†   (source)
  • Omens, portents, messages from the gods, demon boy.†   (source)
  • ON THE NIGHT OF AUGUST 21, 1776, a terrifying storm broke over New York, a storm as vicious as any in living memory, and for those who saw omens in such unleashed fury from the elements—those familiar with the writings of the Roman historian Livy, say, or the plays of Shakespeare, of whom there were many—a night so violent seemed filled with portent.†   (source)
  • She told him she couldn't live without him and saw no portent when he told her this was true for him but not for her.†   (source)
  • Huge eyes as dark as the silt at the bottom of a cup of Armenian espresso, harder to read than the portents in tea leaves, with a distinct almond shape suggesting a touch of Asian blood in the family line.†   (source)
  • Marwyn claims to have found three pages of Signs and Portents, visions written down by the maiden daughter of Aenar Targaryen before the Doom came to Valyria.†   (source)
  • There were so many strange portents of late and none stranger than this little girl he'd rescued in Blys.†   (source)
  • I am neither internee nor informer; An inner émigré, a grown long-haired And thoughtful; a wood-kerne Escaped from the massacre, Taking protective colouring From bole and bark, feeling Every wind that blows; Who, blowing up these sparks For their meagre heat, have missed The once in a lifetime portent, The comet's pulsing rose.†   (source)
  • In any case, she was stupidly off guard and vulnerable when he put out the first signals, as he had before, and she failed to read their portent: the euphoric telephone call from Pfizer, the voice too high-pitched and excited, the announcement of incredible victories in the offing, a grandiose "breakthrough," a majestic scientific discovery.†   (source)
  • It was only a few hundred yards, though, no matter what the signs and portents might say, and finally I rested my hands against the wall, worked my way to the door, opened it, and passed within.†   (source)
  • …or uprooted offset or rechanneled satisfaction guaranteed honesty is the best policy but the client is always right don't tell me I know I know I have spies in every kitchen ears in every bedroom the Hero Gordon without a doubt and your fame needs no heralds milord but honored am I that you should seek me out a biography perhaps to match your matchless deeds complete with old nurse who recalls in her thin and ancient and oh so persuasive voice the signs and portents at your birth—"†   (source)
  • An increasing redness that was like a portent Was glowing above it.†   (source)
  • Would anyone like me to help them interpret the shadowy portents within their Orb?   (source)
    portents = signs of things about to happen
  • She wrote that the Golden Globe Awards are portents of the upcoming Academy Awards
    portents = signs of what will happen
  • 'I was strolling along, brooding upon certain Dark portents 1 happen to have glimpsed …'†   (source)
  • An intensely spiritual young man, Ang Dorje was not one to take such portents lightly.†   (source)
  • I keep glancing at the driver for signs and portents.†   (source)
  • It is said that there had been many signs and portents signifying the fall of the mighty.†   (source)
  • 'It has been guessed already,' said Ingold; 'for there have been strange portents here of late.†   (source)
  • Worthy Vama, we shall take delight in the atmosphere, with all its pungent portents.†   (source)
  • He spoke of weather portents and the slack wits of smallfolk, and told how his nephew itched for battle.†   (source)
  • Under a sky gray-white with lowering mist to the west and drear with gunmetal thunderheads to the east, the day seemed to carry a heavy freight of dire portents.†   (source)
  • Oh man, us portents!†   (source)
  • He had the kind of superstition which runs not to avoiding black cats, walking around ladders, or carrying talismans, but to nervous presentiment and an obscure sense of the stirrings of omens and portents.†   (source)
  • He had an image of a calm and placid sea where nothing stirred, where the water was clear and pointlessly beautiful, but always darker than a man imagined, and down inside its darkness things were stirring, omens and portents.†   (source)
  • Although victory had not brought the relief and freedom that were expected at the end of the war, nevertheless the portents of freedom filled the air throughout the postwar period, and they alone defined its historical significance.†   (source)
  • Before he left, however, he received his wife's reply, In sentences broken by sobs and with tear stains and ink spots for punctuation, she begged him not to come back to Moscow but to go straight to the Urals with that wonderful nurse whose progress through life was marked by portents and coincidences so miraculous that her own, Tonia's, modest life could not possibly compete with it.†   (source)
  • Still, the prospect of a gathering of such historic portent stirred him as nothing ever had.†   (source)
  • It's a portent of doom—it means the end of an empire.†   (source)
  • Evil spirits ran riot through the world; numerous portents of woe arose; and the voices of the myriad of deities were like unto the flies in the fifth moon as they swarmed.†   (source)
  • Michel's death marked, one might say, the end of the first period, that of bewildering portents, and the beginning of another, relatively more trying, in which the perplexity of the early days gradually gave place to panic.†   (source)
  • I recognized the signs, the portents—I recognized the moment, the spot.†   (source)
  • Outward portents and inward presentiments were his.†   (source)
  • Everything seemed dreary: the portents before the birth of Cyrus—Jewish antiquities—oh dear!†   (source)
  • I have heard of such portents before now, but—eh! what's this alongside of it? an hour-glass?"†   (source)
  • A sense of fear of the unknown moved in the heart of his weariness, a fear of symbols and portents, of the hawk-like man whose name he bore soaring out of his captivity on osier-woven wings, of Thoth, the god of writers, writing with a reed upon a tablet and bearing on his narrow ibis head the cusped moon.†   (source)
  • Still, now and then, I received a damping check to my cheerfulness; and was, in spite of myself, thrown back on the region of doubts and portents, and dark conjectures.†   (source)
  • No portents now our foes amaze, Forsaken Israel wanders lone; Our fathers would not know THY ways, And THOU hast left them to their own.†   (source)
  • Whisperings and portents came home upon the four winds: Lo! we are diseased and dying, cried the dark hosts; we cannot write, our voting is vain; what need of education, since we must always cook and serve?†   (source)
  • If to Starbuck the apparition of the Squid was a thing of portents, to Queequeg it was quite a different object.†   (source)
  • OH-YE-HO, CHEERLY MEN!" the crew singing for joy, that so promising an event should so soon have falsified the evil portents preceding it.†   (source)
  • Besides, the old man well knew that to steer by transpointed needles, though clumsily practicable, was not a thing to be passed over by superstitious sailors, without some shudderings and evil portents.†   (source)
  • So that overawed by the rumors and portents concerning him, not a few of the fishermen recalled, in reference to Moby Dick, the earlier days of the Sperm Whale fishery, when it was oftentimes hard to induce long practised Right whalemen to embark in the perils of this new and daring warfare; such men protesting that although other leviathans might be hopefully pursued, yet to chase and point lance at such an apparition as the Sperm Whale was not for mortal man.†   (source)
  • Calamity is all you care about, or see, no happy portents; and you bring to pass nothing agreeable.†   (source)
  • Maion he spared and sent home, bid by portents from the gods.†   (source)
  • This departure from truth on the part of a most honest hobbit was a portent of great significance.†   (source)
  • Just as it had spent its force, just as its ambition had been dimmed by destiny and it was preparing to faint, to turn over, to pour back into the bosom of its mother earth, a portent happened.†   (source)
  • …not, which if this be fidelity, fidelity only to the prime fixed principle of its own savageness; —Clytie who in the very pigmentation of her flesh represented that debacle which had brought Judith and me to what we were and which had made of her (Clyne) that which she declined to be just as she had declined to be that from which its purpose had been to emancipate her, as though presiding aloof upon the new, she deliberately remained to represent to us the threatful portent of the old.†   (source)
  • Then the plane was overhead, its shadows passing over the open glade, the throbbing reaching its maximum of portent.†   (source)
  • Here was strange portent, if not an answer to his queries.†   (source)
  • The first, the very first: I found it a splendid portent.†   (source)
  • All his inner being trembled at the portent of his next query.†   (source)
  • He seemed to be receiving a strange or unusual portent.†   (source)
  • I am not sure that this is not a portent of Revolution.†   (source)
  • They had him, but it was like getting hold of an apparition, a wraith, a portent.†   (source)
  • What was the portent of the wild mourn of the wolves?†   (source)
  • There were to be no waking or sleeping hours free from this portent of calamity.†   (source)
  • The silence of the waning afternoon breathed hateful portent.†   (source)
  • Always the portent was a shadow behind their interest and amiability and jealousy.†   (source)
  • And as if he had done all else, he turned to Miss Bartlett, who sat like some portent against the skies of the evening.†   (source)
  • Tomorrow and next day and the days to come held promise of joyous companionship with Glenn, yet likewise they seemed full of a portent of trouble for her, or fight and ordeal, of lessons that would make life significant for her.†   (source)
  • Tom could only kiss her for that speech, subtle, yet wonderful with its portent as to her surrender to him; but he knew then, and carried away with him next morning, the conviction that Milly would not marry him unless he promised to give up buffalo-hunting.†   (source)
  • Hare met the proffered hand with his own, and as he had recoiled from Snap Naab so now he received another shock, different indeed but impelling in its power, instinctive of some great portent.†   (source)
  • There was a shadow over her, an impending portent of catastrophe, a moment standing dark and sharp out of the age-long hour.†   (source)
  • More than woman's sweetness was in the whisper; the portent of indefinable motive made Hare tremble like a shaking leaf.†   (source)
  • The assembled company suddenly quieted with a portent inimical to their leisurely content of the moment.†   (source)
  • He grew sleepy, and gradually his mind stilled, with his last conscious thought a portent that he would awaken to accomplish his desperate task.†   (source)
  • A sense of utter insecurity as during an earthquake pervaded the minds of men, who whispered their suspicions, looking at each other as if in the presence of some awful portent.†   (source)
  • Her imperiousness changed as the tremendous portent of her words seemed to make Las Vegas a blank, stone image of a man.†   (source)
  • There had been unmistakable hate for Kells in his dark look and a fierce implication in his portent of fatality.†   (source)
  • The passion of that moment, the consciousness of its fateful portent and her situation, as desperate as Cleve's, gave her voice a singularly high and piercingly sweet intensity.†   (source)
  • But did your reverence hear of the portent that was seen last night? a great red letter in the sky—the letter A, which we interpret to stand for Angel.†   (source)
  • We have thrown all the light we could acquire upon the portent, and would gladly, now that it has done its office, erase its deep print out of our own brain, where long meditation has fixed it in very undesirable distinctness.†   (source)
  • Indeed, in some sort, they were not grieved at this event, at least as a portent; for they regarded it, not as a foreshadowing of evil in the future, but as the fulfilment of an evil already presaged.†   (source)
  • One and only one portent is best: defend our fatherland!†   (source)
  • The water welled up shining there, and in that place the great portent appeared.†   (source)
  • Seeing this portent of the gods had visited our sacrifices, Kalkhas told the meaning before us all, at once.†   (source)
  • The end, I think, is what the bird portended— if a true portent—when we wished to cross, the eagle bearing left across the army, beating upward, grappling this great snake, alive.†   (source)
  • Here was a portent for us, and a great one, granted us by inscrutable Zeus—a promise long to be in fulfillment—but the fame of that event will never die.†   (source)
  • The snake fell in the mass of troops, and Trojans shuddered to see the rippling thing lie in their midst, a portent from Lord Zeus who bears the stormcloud.†   (source)
  • She hung the stormcloud shield with raveled tassels ominous from her shoulder: all around upon it in a garland Rout was figured,' Enmity, Force, and Chase that chills the blood, concentered on the Gorgon's head, reptilian seething Fear—a portent of the stormking.†   (source)
  • These are portents; but yet I hope, I hope, They do not point on me.   (source)
    portents = signs of something about to happen
  • O, what portents are these?   (source)
    portents = signs of something to come (in Shakespeare's day, more specifically referring to signs indicating the approach of evil or calamity)
  • And these does she apply for warnings and portents
    And evils imminent; and on her knee
    Hath begg'd that I will stay at home to-day.   (source)
  • BOOK TWENTY -- Portents Gather†   (source)
  • …them.
    I said then: after many blows, and all his shipmates lost,
    after twenty years had wheeled by, he would come home,

    unrecognized by all ….
    and now, look, it all comes to pass!"
    "Stop, old man!"
    Eurymachus, Polybus' son, rose up to take him on.
    "Go home and babble your omens to your children—
    save them from some catastrophe coming soon.
    I'm a better hand than you at reading portents.
    Flocks of birds go fluttering under the sun's rays,
    not all are fraught with meaning.†   (source)
  • Is humanity forming en-masse? for lo, tyrants tremble, crowns grow dim, The earth, restive, confronts a new era, perhaps a general divine war, No one knows what will happen next, such portents fill the days and nights; Years prophetical! the space ahead as I walk, as I vainly try to pierce it, is full of phantoms, Unborn deeds, things soon to be, project their shapes around me, This incredible rush and heat, this strange ecstatic fever of dreams O years!†   (source)
  • But other grievous things he prophesied, Woes, lamentations, mourning, portents dire; To wit I should defile my mother's bed And raise up seed too loathsome to behold, And slay the father from whose loins I sprang.†   (source)
  • This was the foreign prince, by fate decreed To share his scepter, and Lavinia's bed; This was the race that sure portents foreshew To sway the world, and land and sea subdue.†   (source)
  • Portents and prodigies their souls amaz'd; But most, when this stupendous pile was rais'd: Then flaming meteors, hung in air, were seen, And thunders rattled thro' a sky serene.†   (source)
  • Turnus, for high descent and graceful mien, Was first, and favor'd by the Latian queen; With him she strove to join Lavinia's hand, But dire portents the purpos'd match withstand.†   (source)
  • Then dire portents she sees, To hasten on the death her soul decrees: Strange to relate! for when, before the shrine, She pours in sacrifice the purple wine, The purple wine is turn'd to putrid blood, And the white offer'd milk converts to mud.†   (source)
  • Then Nautes, old and wise, to whom alone The will of Heav'n by Pallas was foreshown; Vers'd in portents, experienc'd, and inspir'd To tell events, and what the fates requir'd; Thus while he stood, to neither part inclin'd, With cheerful words reliev'd his lab'ring mind: "O goddess-born, resign'd in ev'ry state, With patience bear, with prudence push your fate.†   (source)
  • And the equine portent grows again, magnified in the deserted heavens, nay to heaven's own magnitude, till it looms, vast, over the house of Virgo.†   (source)
  • One sister plague if these from heav'n he sent, To fright Juturna with a dire portent.†   (source)
  • The feather'd arrow gave a dire portent, And latter augurs judge from this event.†   (source)
  • CORB: The mere portent of nature!†   (source)
  • A greater omen, and of worse portent, Did our unwary minds with fear torment, Concurring to produce the dire event.†   (source)
  • What say you to't? will you again unknit This churlish knot of all-abhorred war, And move in that obedient orb again Where you did give a fair and natural light; And be no more an exhaled meteor, A prodigy of fear, and a portent Of broached mischief to the unborn times?†   (source)
  • Yet, mad with zeal, and blinded with our fate, We haul along the horse in solemn state; Then place the dire portent within the tow'r.†   (source)
  • This new portent the seer with wonder views, Then pausing, thus his prophecy renews: "The nymph, who scatters flaming fires around, Shall shine with honor, shall herself be crown'd; But, caus'd by her irrevocable fate, War shall the country waste, and change the state."†   (source)
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