Sample Sentences for
portentous
(editor-reviewed)

Show 3 more sentences
  • •
    It is the most portentous meeting of the year.
    portentous = important
  • •
    She did not know if these gaps that had been widening were mostly her doing or his, but she knew she still harbored tenderness for him, and so she had brought the weed home, and it was only when she sat beside him on the car seat they had bartered for and used now as a sofa, that she realized, from her nervousness, that how in this moment he responded to the weed was a matter of portentous significance to her.  (source)
  • •
    She could unsheathe from her arsenal a mockingly grave way of talking about things she found either portentous or frivolous.  (source)
    portentous = important or threatening
▲ show less (of above)
Show 10 more with 3 word variations
  • •
    Before me stretched the portentous, menacing road of a new decade.  (source)
    portentous = indicating something important will happen
  • •
    "Harry," Ernie said portentously, holding out his hand as Harry approached, "didn't get a chance to speak in Defense Against The Dark Arts this morning."  (source)
    portentously = in an important-sounding manner
  • •
    No mere pioneering journal dares meddle with them now: the stately Times itself is alone sufficiently above suspicion to act as your chaperone; and even the Times must sometimes thank its stars that new plays are not produced every day, since after each such event its gravity is compromised, its platitude turned to epigram, its portentousness to wit, its propriety to elegance, and even its decorum into naughtiness by criticisms which the traditions of the paper do not allow you to sign at the end, but which you take care to sign with the most extravagant flourishes between the lines.†  (source)
    standard suffix: The suffix "-ness" converts an adjective to a noun that means the quality of. This is the same pattern you see in words like darkness, kindness, and coolness.
  • •
    As if to substantiate Sato's portentous tone, the mantel clock began chiming the hour.  (source)
    portentous = indicating something frightening is to come
  • •
    And the other, he said portentously, would soon be the chief of the Office.  (source)
    portentously = in an important-sounding manner
  • •
    That Himmalehan, salt-sea Mastodon, clothed with such portentousness of unconscious power, that his very panics are more to be dreaded than his most fearless and malicious assaults!†  (source)
  • •
    The measures recommended from the throne, warned the Marquis of Rockingham, were "big with the most portentous and ruinous consequences."  (source)
    portentous = important
  • •
    "Yes, Mr. Marx," said the Director portentously.  (source)
    portentously = in an ominous manner (suggesting something important and frightening is about to occur)
  • •
    Whatever superstitions the sperm whalemen in general have connected with the sight of this object, certain it is, that a glimpse of it being so very unusual, that circumstance has gone far to invest it with portentousness.†  (source)
  • •
    I asked them to consider the coincidence of Nick's thirtieth birthday; the meaning of the sentence "Before me stretched the portentous, menacing road of a new decade" might give our class as much trouble as the meaning of "an urban distaste for the concrete."†  (source)
▲ show less (of above)