Word.ws English Dictionary

portentive

portentive adjective: portentous; prophetic; acting as a presage.

Adjective

portentive (comparative more portentive, superlative most portentive)

  1. portentous; prophetic; acting as a presage.
    • The raven, from a neighbouring oak, responded the portentive croak.1803, James Thomson, Winifred, a tale of wonder, page 141
    • Astrological calculations of nativities, lucky and unlucky days and seasons, are by some regarded, and even moles on the surface of the skin are thought to be portentive of good or bad fortune.1836, Ethan Allen, Reason, the Only Oracle of Man, page 44
  2. Indicating that something is likely to happen in the future.
    • The potential portentive forms, consisting of the potential stem plus the post-clitic -noko, occur with a further post-cliticised contracted form of ylvk 'having said', the perfect participle of 'say', in a clause of negative purpose.1981, H. Myron Bromley, A Grammar of Lower Grand Valley Dani, page 246

Forms of portentive

comparativemore portentive
superlativemost portentive

Origin of portentive

From portent + -ive.

Questions about portentive

What does portentive mean?
Portentive means portentous; prophetic; acting as a presage.
What part of speech is portentive?
Portentive is an adjective.

Words near portentive in the dictionary

  1. portensions
  2. portent
  3. portention
  4. portentions
  5. portentious
  6. portentive
  7. portentosity
  8. portentous
  9. portentously
  10. portentousness
  11. portents

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: portentive (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.

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