0 past simple and past participle of portend
1 to be a sign that something bad is likely to happen in the future:
It was a deeply superstitious country, where earthquakes were commonly believed to portend the end of dynasties.
Prodigies were transgressions in the natural, predictable order of the cosmos signs of divine anger that portended conflict and misfortune.
The fact is that the mere act of intercourse by itself is not enough to show what is portended.
A comet appeared, provoking panic in the population, who feared it portended great disasters.
In retrospect, the joke is considered witty and yet eerily prescient because it portended some of the future turmoil that the artist would endure.
The dream had greatly disturbed him, and he now confessed to the thought that it had portended the death of one of us.
These compositions aroused the interest of the specialists who found them excellent writing which portended a brilliant future for the composer.
Court astrologers, however, were also correct that the event portended disaster.
The glassy sea, humid atmosphere, and falling barometer portended the approaching engagement between ship and her relentlessly violent foes, sea and wind.
