foreboding means of ominous significance; serving as an ill omen; foretelling of harm or difficulty. It carries an Arena rating of 1545, earned across 2 head-to-head judged battles.
Among words judged in Lexicurio's Arena, foreboding ranks #288 of 42,762 for Qualifying, #625 of 17,131 for Scariest Words, #877 of 17,127 for Words That Escaped Their Books, #3,462 of 17,124 for Most Sublime Words.
Why “foreboding” is a great word
A strong inner feeling or portent of future misfortune. From Middle English *forbodyng*, *vorboding*, formed from the prefix *fore-* ("before"), the verb *bode* (from Old English *bodian*, "to announce, foretell"), and the suffix *-ing*. Unlike "premonition," which can be neutral or even hopeful, or "omen," an external sign decoded, foreboding is the visceral, internal certainty of the darkness to come. It is the sudden silence of a familiar room, the scent of smoke on a windless night, and the chill that arrives a full minute before the wind—a primitive alarm system that rings in the blood, the body recognizing catastrophe before the mind has assembled the facts.
Etymology
From Middle English forbodyng, vorboding, equivalent to fore- + bode + -ing. Compare German Vorbote (“harbinger, omen”).
adj
- Of ominous significance; serving as an ill omen; foretelling of harm or difficulty.e.g.“Blood on the street / Foreboding god complex / She never knew she was next” — 2018, “Blood on the Street”, performed by Soulfly:
noun
- A sense of evil to come.e.g.“To me there is something sad in his life, and sometimes I have a sort of foreboding about him. I don't know why, but I fancy he will have some great trouble—perhaps an unhappy end.” — 1876 November, Henry James, Jr., chapter XIII, in The American, Boston, Mass.: James R[ipley] Osgood and Company, […], published 5 May 1877, →OCLC, page 229:
- An evil omen.
Definitions & examples from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 3.0).
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