omen
/ˈəʊmən
/- Then the heavens ripped asunder and showered evil and ill omens upon the face of this beckoning planet.
- By now the portents and ill omens that had dogged the start of their journey were receding quickly into memory.
- These events are often called signs, omens, etc., by those who pay attention to them.
- It was no omen, no gigantic prophecy that comes but once an age, but there was power that night.
- In our happy innocence, we all theorized what this good omen might have signified.
- He wondered if maybe she had been some kind of omen, a harbinger of the chaos that was enveloping the entire SpaceHold.
Synonyms
Origin
Late 16th century: from Latin.
abominable from Middle English:
People used to think that abominable came from Latin ab- ‘away from’ and homo ‘human being’, and so literally meant ‘inhuman or beastly’. Consequently, until the 17th century it was frequently spelt abhominable, a spelling found in Shakespeare. In fact, the word comes from Latin abominari, meaning ‘to regard something as a bad omen’, and is related to omen (late 16th century) and ominous (late 16th century). Abominable Snowman is another name for the Himalayan Yeti. The name was brought back by the Royal Geographical Society expedition mounted in 1921 to Mount Everest, which found mysterious footprints in the snow. Abominable Snowman is a translation of Tibetan Meetoh Gangmi, the name the Sherpa porters gave to the animal responsible for the tracks. Yeti is from Tibetan yeh-the ‘little man-like animal’.