premonitory
Adjective 1. Warning of future misfortune: Serving as a warning or sign that something, typically something bad or unpleasant, is going to happen. 2. Forewarning: Giving an advance indication or feeling about a future event.
The adjective "premonitory" is used to describe signs, feelings, or symptoms that come before an event, especially an adverse one. It is a formal word often used in medical, literary, or psychological contexts. - It typically modifies nouns like sign, symptom, feeling, dream, sense, ache. - It is used attributively (before a noun) or predicatively (after a linking verb like was or felt).
Attributive use (before a noun):
- She had a premonitory dream about the accident the night before it happened.
- The patient experienced premonitory symptoms, such as a severe headache, before the migraine fully developed.
- He felt a premonitory chill as he entered the old, abandoned house.
Predicative use (after a linking verb):
- The sense of dread was premonitory; disaster struck just hours later.
- Her anxiety proved to be premonitory, foreshadowing the bad news that arrived.
- In Medical Contexts: Often used to describe early warning signs of a disease or episode.
- Premonitory aurae are common in some types of epilepsy.
- In Literary/Narrative Contexts: Used to build suspense or foreshadow events.
- The author used the howling wind as a premonitory symbol of the coming turmoil.
- Premonition (noun): A strong feeling that something is about to happen, especially something unpleasant.
- She had a premonition that the journey would end badly.
- Premonitorily (adverb): In a premonitory manner. (This form is very rare in modern usage).
- Ominous: Giving the impression that something bad or unpleasant is going to happen.
- Portentous: Of or like a portent; signaling something significant (often bad).
- Foreboding: Implying or seeming to imply that something bad is going to happen.
- Prognostic: Indicating the likely future course of a disease or situation.
- Reassuring: Serving to relieve anxiety.
- Auspicious: Conducive to success; favorable.
While there are no common idioms using "premonitory," the concept is central to phrases like: - A sense of foreboding: A feeling that something bad will happen. - A warning sign: An indication of potential danger or problems ahead.
- warning of future misfortune