portentous
por·ten·tous
adjective
1.
of momentous or ominous significance
- “such a portentous...monster raised all my curiosity” Herman Melville
- “a prodigious vision”
2.
3.
- “a grandiloquent and boastful manner”
- “overblown oratory”
- “a pompous speech”
- “pseudo-scientific gobbledygook and pontifical hooey” Newsweek
Origin
Of multiple origins: * Borrowed from Latin portentōsus, from portentus (“predicted”) + -ōsus. Compare earlier portentuous (via Middle English from Latin portentuōsus). By surface analysis, portent + -ous. * Borrowed from French portentueux
Related words
Word family
WordNet 2.1 (Princeton University). Wiktionary (CC BY-SA). CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. WordNet 2.1 Copyright Princeton University. All rights reserved. Wiktionary content is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike Licence.