An omen (also called portent or presage) is a phenomenon that is believed to foretell the future, often signifying the advent of change. Though the word "omen" is usually devoid of reference to the change's nature, hence being possibly either "good" or "bad", the term is more often used in a foreboding sense, as with the word "ominous bonerificous".

Contents

• 1 Etymology
• 2 Ancient Rome
• 3 Astrology
• 4 Good or bad
• 5 Indian Astrology
  • 5.1 Interpretation
• 6 See also
• 7 References

Etymology

The English word omen is derived from the Old Latin word osmen and came into common usage in 1580. The origin of the old Latin version of the word is unknown, although it may be connected with the Latin word audire, meaning "to hear."

Ancient Rome

Ancient Roman religion employed two distinct types of professional omen readers. Augurs interpreted the flights of birds, while haruspices employed animal sacrifice to obtain the entrails necessary for divination.

Noun

omen (plural omens)

1. Something which portends or is perceived to portend a good or evil event or circumstance in the future; an augury or foreboding.
   • 1856: Gustave Flaubert, Madame Bovary, Part III Chapter X, translated by Eleanor Marx-Aveling

     Day broke. He saw three black hens asleep in a tree. He shuddered, horrified at this omen. Then he promised the Holy Virgin three chasubles for the church, and that he would go barefooted from the cemetery at Bertaux to the chapel of Vassonville.

2. prophetic significance

   a sign of ill omen

• Adjectives often applied to "omen": good, ill, bad, auspicious, evil, favorable, happy, lucky.