boding
Syllables: bod·ing/ˈbəʊdɪŋ/US/ˈboʊdɪŋ/
boding adjective: foreboding, ominous, portending. Also the gerund of bode.
Adjective
boding (comparative more boding, superlative most boding)
- foreboding, ominous, portending.
- [E]very sound of nature, at that witching hour, fluttered his excited imagination: the moan of the whip-poor-will from the hill side; the boding cry of the tree-toad, that harbinger of storm; […]1820 March 5, Geoffrey Crayon [pseudonym; Washington Irving], “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow”, in The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent., number VI, New York, N.Y.: […] C[ornelius] S. Van Winkle...
- Synonyms:
- inauspicious, portentous, augurous, baleful, bodeful, dire, disastrous, divine, fatal, foreboding
Also used as
boding is also the gerund of bode.
boding is also the present participle and gerund of bode.
Synonyms of boding
15 more synonymsFewer synonyms
Forms of boding
| Adjective | |
|---|---|
| comparative | more boding |
| superlative | most boding |
| Noun | |
| plural | bodings |
Origin of boding
From bode + -ing.
Words formed from boding
Questions about boding
- What does boding mean?
- Boding means foreboding, ominous, portending.
- What part of speech is boding?
- Boding is an adjective.
- How do you pronounce boding?
- Boding is pronounced /ˈbəʊdɪŋ/ (UK).
Words near boding in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: boding (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-boding.wav.
Cite this entry: “boding.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/boding. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.
