PRESAGE

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does presage mean? 

• PRESAGE (noun)
  The noun PRESAGE has 2 senses:

1. a foreboding about what is about to happen

2. a sign of something about to happen

  Familiarity information: PRESAGE used as a noun is rare.

• PRESAGE (verb)
  The verb PRESAGE has 1 sense:

1. indicate, as with a sign or an omen

  Familiarity information: PRESAGE used as a verb is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• PRESAGE (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

A foreboding about what is about to happen

Classified under:

Nouns denoting feelings and emotions

Hypernyms ("presage" is a kind of...):

boding; foreboding; premonition; presentiment (a feeling of evil to come)

Sense 2

Meaning:

A sign of something about to happen

Classified under:

Nouns denoting natural events

Synonyms:

omen; portent; presage; prodigy; prognostic; prognostication

Context example:

he looked for an omen before going into battle

Hypernyms ("presage" is a kind of...):

augury; foretoken; preindication; sign (an event that is experienced as indicating important things to come)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "presage"):

auspice (a favorable omen)

foreboding (an unfavorable omen)

death knell (an omen of death or destruction)

Derivation:

presage (indicate, as with a sign or an omen)

• PRESAGE (verb)

Present simple: I / you / we / they presage    ... he / she / it presages   
Past simple: presaged   
Past participle: presaged   
-ing form: presaging   

Sense 1

Meaning:

Indicate, as with a sign or an omen

Classified under:

Verbs of telling, asking, ordering, singing

Synonyms:

augur; auspicate; betoken; bode; forecast; foreshadow; foretell; omen; portend; predict; prefigure; presage; prognosticate

Context example:

These signs bode bad news

Hypernyms (to "presage" is one way to...):

bespeak; betoken; indicate; point; signal (be a signal for or a symptom of)

Troponyms (each of the following is one way to "presage"):

threaten (to be a menacing indication of something)

foreshow (foretell by divine inspiration)

Sentence frame:

Something ----s something

Derivation:

presage (a sign of something about to happen)

 Context examples 

Ah, not if you were like me—if sleep was to you a presage of horror!

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

The horizon is lost in a grey mist. All is vastness; the clouds are piled up like giant rocks, and there is a "brool" over the sea that sounds like some presage of doom.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

A presage of horror!

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

Never did tombs look so ghastly white; never did cypress, or yew, or juniper so seem the embodiment of funereal gloom; never did tree or grass wave or rustle so ominously; never did bough creak so mysteriously; and never did the far-away howling of dogs send such a woeful presage through the night.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)