auspicious

aus·pi·cious

adj \ȯ-ˈspi-shəs\

Definition of AUSPICIOUS

1

: showing or suggesting that future success is likely : propitious <made an auspicious beginning>

2

: attended by good fortune : prosperous <an auspicious year>

— aus·pi·cious·ly adverb

— aus·pi·cious·ness noun

Examples of AUSPICIOUS

1. His acclaimed first novel was an auspicious debut.
2. <told him she couldn't dance with him just then, but her auspicious smile encouraged him to ask again later>
3. After his auspicious debut, Chambers became sought after by serious collectors of folk art; but given that the present show is now only the second he has had and is the first retrospective look at him, he is probably as obscure to the general museum going public today as he was in 1942. —Sanford Schwartz, New York Review of Books, 15 Jan. 2009
4. There is, first of all, Marconi himself, the 21-year-old prodigy who burst on London with his gizmo in 1896. This wasn't the most auspicious moment for a half-Irish, half-Italian unknown to announce that he had bested some of the empire's greatest scientific minds. —Kevin Baker, New York Times Book Review, 5 Nov. 2006
5. Indeed, it hardly seems like an auspicious time to introduce a brand of cigarettes, especially for tiny Star, which accounts for just over 1 percent of the U.S. market with its four brands of discount smokes. —David Noonan, Newsweek, 16 Oct. 2000

Origin of AUSPICIOUS

(see auspice)

First Known Use: 1593

Related to AUSPICIOUS

Synonyms: hopeful, bright, encouraging, fair, golden, heartening, likely, optimistic, promising, propitious, roseate, rose-colored, rosy, upbeat

Antonyms: bleak, dark, depressing, desperate, discouraging, disheartening, dismal, downbeat, dreary, gloomy, hopeless, inauspicious, pessimistic, unencouraging, unlikely, unpromising, unpropitious

Related Words: cheering, comforting, reassuring, soothing; assured, confident, decisive, doubtless, positive, sure, unhesitating; beamish, bullish, eupeptic; favorable, good

Near Antonyms: cheerless, comfortless; doubtful, dubious, uncertain; bearish, grim, negative, unfavorable; funereal, glum, gray (also grey), miserable, wretched

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See Synonym Discussion at favorable

Rhymes with AUSPICIOUS

ambitious, capricious, delicious, factitious, fictitious, flagitious, judicious, lubricious, malicious, nutritious, officious, pernicious, propitious, pumiceous, seditious, sericeous, suspicious