Meanings
comparative more boding · superlative most boding
- foreboding, ominous, portending.
[E]very sound of nature, at that witching hour, fluttered his excited imagination: the moan of the whip-poor-will from the hill side; the boding cry of the tree-toad, that harbinger of storm; […]
1820 March 5, Geoffrey Crayon [pseudonym; Washington Irving], “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow”, in The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent., number VI, New York, N.Y.: […] C[ornelius] S. Van Winkle, […], →OCLC, page 65Synonyms: inauspicious, portentous, augurous, baleful, bodeful, dire, disastrous, divine
plural bodings
- gerundgerund of bode: a prediction of disaster; an omen, a portent.
- gerundparticiplepresentpresent participle and gerund of bode
Synonyms & antonyms
adjectiveforeboding, ominous, portending.
More synonyms by meaning
nouna feeling of evil to come
Synonym sets from Open English WordNet, CC BY 4.0.
Origin
Rhymes & wordplay
Anagrams
Cite this entry
boding. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 2, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/boding
“boding.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/boding. Accessed November 2, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “boding,” accessed November 2, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/boding.
Source: boding on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.