From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishominousom‧i‧nous /ˈɒmɪnəs $ ˈɑː-/ adjective WARNmaking you feel that something bad is going to happen ‘How long will she be ill?’ he asked. There was an ominous silence. The car is making an ominous rattling sound. —ominously adverb The sky looked ominously dark.
Examples from the Corpus
ominous• My manager asked for an appointment at nine o'clock on a Monday morning: it sounded ominous.• Another wave crashed onto the deck and the mast made an ominous creaking sound.• Rumblings that the election might be postponed once again have grown after a series of ominous events in recent weeks.• A sequence played amid a storm exudes the right air of ominous foreboding.• The music moves from ominous grooves to all-out instrumental pummeling of the listener -- all in the same piece.• The Straits Times, the government-controlled newspaper, reported the loss in dark, ominous headlines, heavy with foreboding.• It is an ominous metaphor, though.• So was it ever thus, history the source of ominous portent, further nourishing Bobby Robson's anxiety?• No one had taken up Sylvian's work, despite the ominous ruler and ink.• There was an ominous silence in the room.• Katy answered the phone. There was an ominous silence.• I felt as if something ominous was happening even as I sat there watching him.ominous silence• But the first few readings he had assigned had produced an ominous silence.• There is a deep, ominous silence.• It is an ominous silence; it must be broken.• An ominous silence.. now intervened..Origin ominous (1500-1600) Latin ominosus, from omen 