How to Use portent in a Sentence

portent

noun

• The first thing on the menu, a $6 thick slice of milk bread, is a portent of what’s to come.
  — Soleil Ho, San Francisco Chronicle, 11 June 2021
• The Brazilian’s chance was a portent of what was to come.
  — Samindra Kunti, Forbes, 24 Feb. 2021
• The attack would not be a one-off event, but a portent of what’s to come.
  — Aluf Benn, Foreign Affairs, 7 Feb. 2024
• Even so, the fulfillment of the nightmare has me in the grip of its portent.
  — Lisa Wells, Harper's magazine, 10 Apr. 2019
• The first portent of imminent death is that flies cease to fly...
  — Neuroskeptic, Discover Magazine, 19 Dec. 2017
• That said, the Koch feud is a portent of more fractures in the party system.
  — Daniel Henninger, WSJ, 8 Aug. 2018
• The skull felt like a portent, but also a turning point.
  — Brian Groh, Star Tribune, 27 Oct. 2020
• Many see this, like the Starbucks many years before, as a dark portent.
  — Angela Helm, The Root, 3 Aug. 2017
• For a while all anyone could talk about, in tones of portent and doom, was what the baby might be missing.
  — Patricia Lockwood, The New Yorker, 23 Nov. 2020
• Thus a look into the past becomes a chilling portent of the future.
  — Bill Goodykoontz, The Arizona Republic, 27 June 2022
• The teamsheet, however, was an ominous portent of things to come...
  — SI.com, 31 Oct. 2019
• His victory lap is an outrage—and a grim portent of things to come.
  — Alex Shephard, The New Republic, 1 Dec. 2021
• That is why the 10 percent trim in performances for next season is a portent of what’s to come.
  — Zachary Woolfe, New York Times, 1 Jan. 2023
• But any such plan seems a portent of greater catastrophe.
  — Bernard Avishai, The New Yorker, 2 Mar. 2024
• Amanda Zieve’s lighting also adds to the sense of portent.
  — (jim Carmody), San Diego Union-Tribune, 9 June 2019
• The days are shorter, the sunlight is cooler, dilemmas deepen, and the air is crisp with portent.
  — Beth Segal, cleveland, 17 Sep. 2020
• On opening night, the pools were dyed blood-red, a portent of critical carnage to come.
  — Dana Goodyear, The New Yorker, 5 Oct. 2020
• The astonishing night two skate propelled him to fifth overall -- off the medal stand but a portent of things to come.
  — Mark Osborne, ABC News, 3 Feb. 2022
• These crackdowns are, on their own, a portent of the ways in which the Chinese state seeks to extend the hegemony of Mandarin.
  — Gina Anne Tam, Foreign Affairs, 19 Sep. 2023
• This year could be a portent of even more extreme, seashore-ruining, events.
  — Elizabeth Weise, USA TODAY, 17 June 2023
• The characters in Snake Eyes always seem to be in climax-speak mode; even the most throwaway lines are steeped in portent.
  — Bilge Ebiri, Vulture, 23 July 2021
• Buried in the 2006 Newsweek article is a glib definition of the ‘id’ that today reads like a portent.
  — Warren Breckman, New Republic, 1 June 2017
• After Astroworld, many noted that the rampant gate-crashing could have been seen as a portent of what was to come.
  — Chris Willman, Variety, 14 Feb. 2022
• Perhaps the troubling signs Roiphe detects are portents of a dark future.
  — Jonathan Chait, Daily Intelligencer, 16 Feb. 2018
• The storms seemed an ill portent for the very first Falcon 9 rocket, which the SpaceX launch team had moved to the company’s new pad only a day before.
  — Eric Berger, Ars Technica, 3 June 2020
• The fight over this provision, with more than $1 trillion at stake over a decade, is a portent of the bruising broader battle ahead.
  — Gerard Baker, WSJ, 29 Sep. 2017
• The land disputes wouldn’t be settled for years to come — a portent of the role that real estate has played in the state throughout its history.
  — Michael Hiltzik, Los Angeles Times, 24 Dec. 2020
• The sack was seen as a portent—of the end of the empire or even, as some apocalyptic Christian writers saw it, the end of God’s earthly creation.
  — Cullen Murphy, The Atlantic, 9 June 2020
• While in Russia, Imbrie witnessed a peasant shot dead by a guard over a miniscule amount of food—a portent of the Great Famine that would soon claim millions of lives.
  — Francine Uenuma, Smithsonian Magazine, 5 Sep. 2024
• Still, the consequences of any presidential election – not to mention the drama and portents of this particular election – compel the attention of voters and media alike.
  — Ron Elving, NPR, 22 June 2024

Last Updated: 25 Dec 2024