Definify.com
Webster 1913 Edition
Portend
Por-tend′
,Verb.
T.
[
imp. & p. p.
Portended
; p. pr. & vb. n.
Portending
.] 1.
To indicate (events, misfortunes, etc.) as in future; to foreshow; to foretoken; to bode; – now used esp. of unpropitious signs.
Bacon.
Many signs
portended
a dark and stormy day. Macaulay.
2.
To stretch out before.
[R.]
“Doomed to feel the great Idomeneus’ portended steel.” Pope.
Syn. – To foreshow; foretoken; betoken; forebode; augur; presage; foreshadow; threaten.
Webster 1828 Edition
Portend
PORTEND'
,Verb.
T.
A moist and cool summer portends a hard winter.
Definition 2024
portend
portend
English
Verb
portend (third-person singular simple present portends, present participle portending, simple past and past participle portended)
- (transitive) To serve as a warning or omen.
- John Milton, Paradise Lost
- A kingdom they portend thee, but what kingdom, / Real or allegoric, I discern not; Nor when: eternal sure--as without end,
- John Milton, Paradise Lost
- (transitive) To signify; to denote.
- Let it be known that the Rapture portends the End of Days.
- 2012 June 26, Genevieve Koski, “Music: Reviews: Justin Bieber: Believe”, in The Onion AV Club:
- When the staccato, Neptunes-ian single “Boyfriend” was released in March, musical prognosticators were quick to peg the album it portended, Believe, as Justin Bieber’s Justified, a grown-and-sexy, R&B-centric departure that evolved millennial teenybopper Justin Timberlake into one of the unifying pop-music figures of the aughts.
Synonyms
Related terms
Translations
to serve as a warning or omen
to signify