How to Use portentous in a Sentence

portentous

adjective

• The book, which came out in Sweden in 2018, feels portentous in so many ways.
  — Zibby Owens, Washington Post, 16 Mar. 2020
• The first sentence sounds the alarm in a portentous poetic rhythm (The fight is here).
  — Susan J. Wolfson, The Atlantic, 18 June 2022
• Bad as smash-crash-bash can be, portentous smash-crash-bash is far worse.
  — Mark Feeney, BostonGlobe.com, 14 June 2023
• Muad’Dib is also the name for a little rodent that hops around their desert, which is why the movie has a lot of portentous shots of a cute mouse.
  — Jackson McHenry, Vulture, 19 Oct. 2021
• It was first published in 1966, the year of my birth, which struck me as terribly portentous.
  — Design Art B., Longreads, 7 Apr. 2022
• Two years ago, even a month ago, such a minor symptom would not have seemed portentous.
  — BostonGlobe.com, 8 Aug. 2021
• But there was still something portentous about a large whale stranding.
  — National Geographic, 9 Apr. 2018
• These days, a delay of minutes can feel eternal and portentous.
  — Emily Bobrow, WSJ, 4 Dec. 2018
• Like other major moments in the film, the tension is heightened by Ishaan Chhabra’s thrilling, portentous score.
  — Deborah Young, The Hollywood Reporter, 13 Nov. 2017
• The cataclysm sparked by the portentous result that brought the ruling coalition, Frente de Todos, to the precipice seems to have sucked the air out of the political arena.
  — Agustino Fontevecchia, Forbes, 27 Oct. 2021
• The dimming of the light means a cooling of temperatures, and a portentous lick of wind may come up as the eclipse reaches totality.
  — Jeffrey Kluger, Time, 18 Aug. 2017
• This is a portentous touch, but the poem describes feelings that can arise every winter.
  — Richard Brookhiser, National Review, 19 Dec. 2019
• As the arc of the show grows increasingly macabre, some of the portentous weight of birthing — the need to make the perfect choices, to give birth in an ideal and aspirational way — gives way to a wicked sense of fun.
  — Alexandra Kleeman, New York Times, 21 Apr. 2023
• For all her strengths, Campbell does have one conspicuous weakness, for the form of the overheated and portentous quote.
  — Scott Anderson, New York Times, 5 Sep. 2017
• With the agility of a dolphin, that pig sailed (mostly) over the electric wire, dragging just a little bit of his portentous belly across it and barging through the barbed wire fence.
  — Lauren Ritchie, OrlandoSentinel.com, 26 Mar. 2018
• That job — conveying portentous urgency — would have to fall to the novel’s prose.
  — Joan Frank, Washington Post, 12 July 2023
• Gemini opens with an upside-down image of palm trees, silhouetted against the L.A. night sky and hanging from the top of the frame like portentous, spindly bats.
  — David Sims, The Atlantic, 30 Mar. 2018
• There are plenty of meaningful looks, but just not enough meaning to sustain this heavy, portentous tone.
  — Katie Walsh, Los Angeles Times, 27 Jan. 2022
• The trailer is peppered with a series of portentous images: A man burning a handful of papers.
  — Travis M. Andrews, chicagotribune.com, 9 May 2018
• The interlude gave body and soul a brief respite from all the portentous solemnity of a ceremony that marched in time to tradition but at times felt out of step with this world.
  — Peter Marks, Washington Post, 6 May 2023
• The Cuban slugger also included his usual array of bat flips and portentous pauses at the plate.
  — Molly Blue, OregonLive.com, 15 Oct. 2017
• Further testing showed the portentous bump in the data to be just a statistical anomaly.
  — Nathaniel Scharping, Discover Magazine, 22 Nov. 2016
• Her singing voice is a magisterial thing — epic and portentous, even a little scary.
  — Owen Myers, EW.com, 30 June 2022
• The song, from Barnett’s partner, has a tidy structure and portentous mood that’s different from most of what’s in Barnett’s or Vile’s catalogues.
  — Spencer Kornhaber, The Atlantic, 13 Oct. 2017
• But the phrase feels more portentous than exhilarating, given the source.
  — Rachel Syme, The New Yorker, 15 Aug. 2022
• The most portentous challenge to the current international order comes in Asia, with the rise of Chinese power.
  — Fareed Zakaria, Foreign Affairs, 12 Dec. 2023
• But unlike the relative low-budget kicks of his previous two films, Glass has lots of portentous self-importance that the movie never quite earns.
  — Tim Grierson, Vulture, 26 July 2021
• Three brown-skinned figures peer over the barrier in the upper left corner, perhaps the only witnesses to this portentous standoff.
  — Sharon Mizota, Los Angeles Times, 8 Aug. 2019
• The new Spider-Man, the Guardians, and now Thor are the exact opposite of portentous or overly self-serious protagonists.
  — Josh Spiegel, The Hollywood Reporter, 16 Mar. 2018
• Over at Harvey’s, over a dinner of milk and tuna (great makeout food), Morningstar realizes that Harvey has those portentous doodles of the Terrors framed on his walls.
  — Jessica Goldstein, Vulture, 1 Jan. 2021

Last Updated: 20 Nov 2024