Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun One of a group of ancient Roman religious officials who foretold events by observing and interpreting signs and omens.
- noun A seer or prophet; a soothsayer.
- intransitive verb To predict, especially from signs or omens; foretell. synonym: foretell.
- intransitive verb To serve as an omen of; betoken.
- intransitive verb To make predictions from signs or omens.
- intransitive verb To be a sign or omen.
from The Century Dictionary.
- To prognosticate from signs, omens, or indications; predict; anticipate: with a personal subject.
- To betoken; forebode: with a non-personal or impersonal subject.
- Synonyms To portend, presage, foreshadow, be ominous of.
- To conjecture from signs or omens.
- To be a sign; bode: with well or ill.
- noun Among the ancient Romans, a functionary whose duty it was to observe and to interpret, according to traditional rules, the auspices, or reputed natural signs concerning future events.
- noun Hence One who pretends to foretell future events by omens; a soothsayer; a prophet; one who bodes, forebodes, or portends.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun (Rom. Antiq.) An official diviner who foretold events by the singing, chattering, flight, and feeding of birds, or by signs or omens derived from celestial phenomena, certain appearances of quadrupeds, or unusual occurrences.
- noun One who foretells events by omens; a soothsayer; a diviner; a prophet.
- intransitive verb To conjecture from signs or omens; to prognosticate; to foreshow.
- intransitive verb To anticipate, to foretell, or to indicate a favorable or an unfavorable issue.
- transitive verb To predict or foretell, as from signs or omens; to betoken; to presage; to infer.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun A
diviner whoforetells events by the behaviour of birds or other animals, or by signs derived from celestial phenomena, or unusual occurrences. - noun An
official who interpretedomens before the start of public events. - verb To
foretell events; to exhibit signs of future events.
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- verb predict from an omen
- noun (ancient Rome) a religious official who interpreted omens to guide public policy
- verb indicate by signs
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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Sura xxvii. 48; vii. 128, where, as in this passage, the word augur refers to the mode of divination practised previous to Islam, by the flight of birds.
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You haven't ever had it that much better and any change that works for customers longer-term augur well for everybody.
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My point is "augur" is the operative word in that analysis.
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And it has a tool, which will be able to kind of augur into them, and peek at those rocks, get a sense of what they have to say because they do tell a story about what happened to the water.
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He is really the religious head of the community, a kind of augur and prophet, who consults the gods and communicates to the people the answers he claims to have received.
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Carney used to be one of us, which might augur that the mutual loathing of the White House media team and some of those in the press corps - a situation that doubtless has boosted Obama's poll numbers - might ease somewhat.
Is national security deputy Donilon moving up? Al Kamen 2010
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Carney used to be one of us, which might augur that the mutual loathing of the White House media team and some of those in the press corps - a situation that doubtless has boosted Obama's poll numbers - might ease somewhat.
Is national security deputy Donilon moving up? Al Kamen 2010
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The SEC has the power to ask FINRA to make changes, but the lukewarm comments and the clear advances that the rule filing offers augur for a fast approval.
FINRA's New Suitability Rule Doesn't Go Far Enough Seth Lipner 2010
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"It doesn't augur well for Venezuela," says Roger Noriega, a former high-ranking state department official during the Bush administration.
Venezuela Plans to Move Reserve Funds José de Córdoba 2011
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If it does, it means that the economy will be performing very badly also, which does not augur well for the stock market, the supposed great alternative solution.
American Mugabe?, Bryan Caplan | EconLog | Library of Economics and Liberty 2009
treeseed commented on the word augur
The Augur (pl: augurs) was a priest and official in the classical world, especially ancient Rome. His main role was to interpret the will of the gods by studying the flight of the birds (flying in groups/alone, what noises they make as they fly, direction of flight and what kind of birds they are), known as "taking the auspices." The ceremony and function of the augur was central to any major undertaking in Roman society--public or private--including matters of war, commerce, and religion.
The derivation of the word augur is uncertain; ancient authors believed that it contained the words avi and gero --Latin for "directing the birds"--but historical-linguistic evidence points instead to the root aug-, "to increase, to prosper."
_Wikipedia
February 6, 2008
hernesheir commented on the word augur
Railroad telegraphers' shorthand for the phrase "Authority can be given". --US Railway Association, Standard Cipher Code, 1906.
January 20, 2013