0 too serious and trying to be very important:
The report contains numerous portentous references to a future environmental calamity.
The problem with the book is that it sometimes descends into portentous philosophizing.
I find that in every part of the world, notably in the country which is producing films, they erect portentous tariffs against our goods.
He is to have the whole of this new portentous constitutional machinery at his disposal.
When allowance is made for all these things, what kind of residual yield is there likely to be from this portentous operation?
I am thinking how they would have dwelt on the portentous profits which were being made by the people who owned those ships.
I think these figures are really most portentous and alarming.
I wish to conclude by saying something which sounds a little pompous and a little portentous, but it needs to be said.
Why have there been these quite portentous changes?
I should have thought, with respect, that this rather portentous statement was, to put it mildly, a glimpse of the obvious.