augury

Word family

• augur
  nounC2
• augur
  verbC2
• augural
  adjectiveC2

Synonym discussion

Sense: noun/1

Augury is the most formal and literary of these words, often linked to ancient practices of reading natural signs. Omen is its closest everyday equivalent — you might call a black cat a bad omen, but you would rarely call it a bad augury outside of a novel. Portent shares augury's dramatic weight but leans towards the threatening: a portent of doom, not a portent of good luck. Sign is the broadest term; a sign can point to the past, present, or future, while augury always looks ahead. Harbinger often names a person or thing whose arrival signals a larger change — 'the first robin is a harbinger of spring' — whereas augury stays closer to the idea of deliberate interpretation. Compare: 'The villagers took the eclipse as an augury of the king's fall' (formal, interpretive) with 'A red sky at dawn is an omen of bad weather' (direct, common).

Common collocations

Etymology

From Latin augurium ('divination, omen'), from augur ('a priest in ancient Rome who interpreted the will of the gods by studying the flight and calls of birds'). The word entered English through Old French augurie in the 14th century, where it kept its original sense of divining the future from natural signs.