Foreboding

adj, noun, verb

adj, noun, verb ·3 syllables ·Common ·High school level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A sense of evil to come. countable, uncountable

    "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."

  2. 2
    an unfavorable omen wordnet
  3. 3
    An evil omen. countable, uncountable
  4. 4
    a feeling of evil to come wordnet
Verb
  1. 1
    present participle and gerund of forebode form-of, gerund, participle, present
Adjective
  1. 1
    Of ominous significance; serving as an ill omen; foretelling of harm or difficulty.

    "Blood on the street / Foreboding god complex / She never knew she was next"

Adjective
  1. 1
    ominously prophetic wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
auguryportentousabusiveactuarial predictionadvance noticeaffect

Example

More examples

"Mary walked along the river with a foreboding that this was the last time she would walk anywhere as a free woman."

Etymology

From Middle English forbodyng, vorboding, equivalent to fore- + bode + -ing. Compare German Vorbote (“harbinger, omen”).

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.