portentous

Word family

1 literaryIMPORTANT showing that something important is going to happen, especially something bad 预示未来的；凶兆的，征兆不祥的

Recent developments are as portentous as the collapse of the Berlin Wall.

最近的事态发展犹如柏林墙的倒塌，让人有一种山雨欲来风满楼的感觉。

2 PROUDtrying to appear important and serious 自命不凡的，摆架子的，自大的

a portentous film

装腔作势的电影

Examples from the Corpus

portentous• Sunderland won 2-1; perhaps he will think it portentous.• Hence the portentous, and even fatuous slogan which towered each year in brightest blue above the rostrum.• That Grunwald had a good seat for all this is obviated by his talent for the portentous and gift for the unremarkable.• Neither the Realists nor the photographers were unaware of the significance of such a portentous conjunction.• The split reflected a portentous difference of approach within the Party.• Last week Karl-Marx Allee was again treated to the sounds of portentous rhetoric and polite laughter.• Such alarms reflected the Alsops' tendency to cloak their analyses in portentous terms of dread and dismay.• The captured instant often takes on meanings far more portentous than the actual event.

Chinese

Syllable

Corpus

BNC: 23278 COCA: 26114

portentous