augur
pronunciation
How to pronounce augur in British English:
UK [ˈɔ:gə(r)]
How to pronounce augur in American English:
US [ˈɔɡɚ]
-
- Noun:
- (ancient Rome) a religious official who interpreted omens to guide public policy
-
- Verb:
- indicate by signs
- predict from an omen
Word Origin
- augur
- augur: [14] In Roman times, an augur was someone who foretold the future by observing the flight of birds (or by examining their entrails). His method of divination was reflected in his title, for the Latin word augur, earlier auger, seems to have meant literally ‘one who performs with birds’, from avis ‘bird’ (as in English aviary [16] and aviation [19]) and gerere ‘do, perform’ (as in English gestation, gesture, gerund, digest, and suggest). (A parallel formation is auspice [16], whose Latin antecedent auspex meant ‘one who observed the flight of birds’; it was compounded from avis and the verb specere ‘look’, which is related to English species and spy.) A Latin derivative was the verb inaugurāre ‘foretell the future from the flight of birds’, which was applied to the installation of someone of office after the appropriate omens had been determined; by the time it reached English as inaugurate [17], the association with divination had been left far behind.=> aviary, aviation, inaugurate
- augur (n.)
- 1540s, from Latin augur, a religious official in ancient Rome who foretold events by interpreting omens, perhaps originally meaning "an increase in crops enacted in ritual," in which case it probably is from Old Latin *augos (genitive *augeris) "increase," and is related to augere "increase" (see augment). The more popular theory is that it is from Latin avis "bird," because the flights, singing, and feeding of birds, along with entrails from bird sacrifices, were important objects of divination (compare auspicious). In that case, the second element would be from garrire "to talk."
- augur (v.)
- c. 1600, from augur (n.). Related: Augured; auguring.
Example
- 1. Such frustrations augur ill for iran 's future .
- 2. If so , it could augur poorly for 2010 , or at least for the first months .
- 3. While that would augur for more gains in the short term , it also could set the stage for a crash later on .
- 4. But behind the as-yet-undefined specifics of american policy , there appear to lie some new assumptions that augur well for success .
- 5. The collapse of the communist empire and the apparent embrace of democracy by russia seemed to augur a new era of global convergence .