Today's Word "portend"
To foreshadow
on
Published in Vocabulary
portend \por-TEND\ (verb) - To indicate (events, misfortunes, etc.) as in future; to foreshadow; to bode.
"What did all this portend, and what portended the swift hoisting-up of Monsieur Gabelle behind a servant on horseback..." -- Charles Dickens, 'A Tale of Two Cities'
Portend comes from Latin portendere, to indicate, to predict, from por- (variant of pro-), before + tendere, to stretch out, to spread. Thus that which portends is that which stretches out before us into the future.
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