harbinger
Syllables: har·bin·gerUK/ˈhɑːbɪndʒə//ˈhɑɹ.bɪn.d͡ʒəɹ/
harbinger noun: a person or thing that foreshadows or foretells the coming of someone or something.
Noun
harbinger (plural harbingers)
- A person or thing that foreshadows or foretells the coming of someone or something.
- harbinger of danger; harbinger of doom; harbinger of spring
- Make all our Trumpets ſpeak, giue thẽ all breath / Thoſe clamorous Harbingers of Blood, & Deathc. 1606 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Macbeth”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount...
- Synonyms:
- forewarning, herald, omen, premonition, sign, signal, prophet, precursor
- One who provides lodgings; especially, the officer of the English royal household who formerly preceded the court when travelling, to provide and prepare lodgings.
- outward decency […] is the Harbinger to provide the lodging for inward holinesse1644, Thomas Fuller, "Truth Maintained" (a sermon)
Verb
harbinger (third-person singular simple present harbingers, present participle harbingering, simple past and past participle harbingered)
harbinger meaning in Tamil, Urdu, Bengali and Malayalam
harbinger in Tamil
- முன்னோடி, அறிகுறி, அடையாளம், முன் அறிவி, அறிவித்தல்
harbinger in Urdu
- ہرکارہ, خبررساں, مبشر, نقیب
harbinger in Bengali
- অগ্রদূত
harbinger in Malayalam
- മുന്നോടി, മുമ്പേ വരുന്നവൻ, മുൻസൂചന, അഗ്രസാമി
More languagesFewer languages
- harbinger in Kannada
- ದೂತ, ಮುನ್ಸೂಚಕ, ಮತ್ತೊಬ್ಬನ ಆಗಮನವನ್ನು ಮುಂದಾಗಿ ತಿಳಿಸುವವನು, ಶಕುನ
- harbinger in Vietnamese
- điềm báo, dấu hiệu
Examples of harbinger in a sentence
- But it could be a harbinger of things to come in a hotter, drier West.
- “For me, it's a harbinger of larger cultural changes coming down the pike.”
- His testimony at a public hearing was a harbinger of uglier epithets to come.
Synonyms of harbinger
Forms of harbinger
| Noun | |
|---|---|
| plural | harbingers |
| Verb | |
| third-person singular present | harbingers |
| present participle | harbingering |
| past participle | harbingered |
| past | harbingered |
Origin of harbinger
Originally, a person sent in advance to arrange lodgings. From Middle English herberjour, herbergeour, from Old French herbergeor (French hébergeur), from herbergier (“to set up camp; to shelter; to take shelter”) + -or (suffix forming agent nouns), from Old High German heribergan, ultimately from Proto-West Germanic *harjabergu (“army camp, shelter”). Compare German Herberge, Italian albergo, Dutch herberg, English harbor. More at here, bury.
Words formed from harbinger
Questions about harbinger
- What does harbinger mean?
- Harbinger means a person or thing that foreshadows or foretells the coming of someone or something.
- What is harbinger in Tamil?
- Harbinger in Tamil is முன்னோடி, அறிகுறி, அடையாளம். See Harbinger meaning in Tamil.
- What part of speech is harbinger?
- Harbinger can be a noun or a verb.
- How do you pronounce harbinger?
- Harbinger is pronounced /ˈhɑːbɪndʒə/ (UK).
- What is the plural of harbinger?
- The plural of harbinger is harbingers.
Words near harbinger in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: harbinger (page history and authors); harbinger (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); harbinger (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); Harbinger (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); harbinger (Malayalam Wiktionary) (page history and authors); harbinger (Kannada Wiktionary) (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: en-us-harbinger.ogg.
Cite this entry: “harbinger.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/harbinger. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.