augury

noun au·gu·ry \ ˈȯ-gyə-rē , -gə- \

Updated on: 2 May 2018

Definition of augury

plural auguries

1 : divination from auspices (see auspice 3) or omens

Ancient augury involved the interpretation of the flight patterns of birds.

; also : an instance of this

2 : omen, portent

" … the best augury of a man's success in his profession is that he thinks it the finest in the world."
—George Eliot

See augury defined for kids

Examples of augury in a Sentence

a yearbook augury that of all the graduates, he would be the most likely to succeed
some people believe that a broken mirror is an augury of seven years' bad luck

Recent Examples of augury from the Web

The horrific aftermath of Hurricane Maria might almost be considered an augury of what that would look like, every day.

— The Economist, "America has let down its Puerto Rican citizens," 12 Apr. 2018
That augury led him, a year later, to end all legal sanctions on the public profession of Christianity.

— george weigel, WSJ, "The Easter Effect and How It Changed the World," 30 Mar. 2018
The scene makes for a gruesome tableau, especially because of its intimacy (death often comes in close-up here), and because of the blood that splatters across Dominika, an augury of the lurid, messy violence to come.

— manohla dargis, New York Times, "Review: ‘Red Sparrow’ Has Spies, Lies and Dirty Dancing," 1 Mar. 2018
These developments—and the company’s prodigious burn rate, an estimated $8,000 per minute—have brought out the three-eyed ravens squawking auguries of doom.

— dan neil, WSJ, "How Tesla Electrified Rivals at the L.A. Auto Show," 8 Dec. 2017
Well, how about an augury of death to top things off: the image of its star, Jennifer Lawrence, burning in flames.

— laura beck, Cosmopolitan, "13 Times Critics Couldn't Believe How Weird JLaw's New Movie Mother! Is," 12 Sep. 2017
An unexpected blast of solar radiation damages the ship, stirs the crew from their hypersleep, and results in the death of the Covenant’s erstwhile captain inside his malfunctioning sleep pod, an unheeded augury of things to come.

— sam adams, Slate Magazine, "Alien: Covenant," 11 May 2017
Set in 2019, the play possesses the unsettling chill of a plausible augury.

— The New Yorker, "Building the Wall," 5 June 2017
There were auguries on Wednesday when an email to Mr. Gove from his wife, Sarah Vine, a journalist, was leaked.

— steven erlanger and stephen castle, New York Times, "Johnson Says He Won’t Run for Prime Minister," 30 June 2016

These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'augury.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.