Online dictionaryOnline dictionary
Synonyms, antonyms, pronunciation

  Home
English Dictionary      examples: 'day', 'get rid of', 'New York Bay'




Augur   /ˈɔgər/   Listen
Augur

noun
1.
(ancient Rome) a religious official who interpreted omens to guide public policy.  Synonym: auspex.



Related search:



WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








Advanced search
     Find words:
Starting with
Ending with
Containing
Matching a pattern  

Synonyms
Antonyms
Quotes
Words linked to  

only single words



Share |
Add this dictionary
to your browser search bar





"Augur" Quotes from Famous Books



... of Chromis and Ennomos the augur, yet with all his auguries warded he not black fate from him, but was vanguished by the hand of fleet-footed Aiakides in the river, when he made havoc of the Trojans ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer (Lang, Leaf, Myers trans.)

... part, and thinking that he who was an unloyal lover would be an unfaithful husband—she would augur of the future of her daughter by my experience; and what ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet

... the astrologers, and the exchange of presents, are too long to be described. I shall mention only, that in all these ceremonies the astrologer plays the double part of an augur and a family lawyer. After a general invocation to the elephant-headed god Ganesha, the marriage contract is written on the reverse of the horoscopes and sealed, and a general blessing is ...
— From the Caves and Jungles of Hindostan • Helena Pretrovna Blavatsky

... so elevated, that, if written by a man, it would have run into exaggeration; written by a woman, the romance was carried off by so many genuine revelations of sincere, deep, pathetic feeling, that it was always natural, though true to a nature for which you would not augur happiness. ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... down to bring home Josiah's augur, and the conversation turned onto Adventin'. And Miss Pool see that Joe wuz congenial on that subject; he believed jest as she did, that the world would come to an end the 30th. This was along the first ...
— Samantha Among the Brethren, Complete • Josiah Allen's Wife (Marietta Holley)

... horse is dead. Did the new moon, which I saw so squarely over my left shoulder when riding him over Waldron's ridge, augur this? ...
— The Citizen-Soldier - or, Memoirs of a Volunteer • John Beatty

... her entreaties to stay at home, when Decimus Brutus came in and laughed him out of it. As he was carried to the senate-house in a litter, a man gave him a writing and begged him to read it instantly; but he kept it rolled in his hand without looking. As he went up the steps he said to the augur Spurius, "The Ides of March are come." "Yes, Caesar," was the answer; "but they are not passed." A few steps further on, one of the conspirators met him with a petition, and the others joined in it, clinging to his robe and his neck, till another caught ...
— Young Folks' History of Rome • Charlotte Mary Yonge

... long Lease at a Peppercorn Rent of a Farm of his in Wiltshire. The Match, however, came to nothing. I was not yet disposed to surrender my Liberty; and, indeed, the Behaviour of Miss Lightfoot, while the Treaty of Alliance between us was being discussed, did not augur very favourably for our felicity in the Matrimonial State. Indeed, she was pleased to call me Rogue, Gambler, Bully, Led Captain, and many other uncivil names. She snapped off the silver hilt of my dress-sword (presented to me after I had fought the Second in Hyde Park), ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 3 of 3 • George Augustus Sala

... that before had fled turned and pursued the eagle, and drave him before them, so that he dropped the swan and fled away. Which thing when the Italians perceived they shouted, and made them ready for battle. And the augur Tolumnius cried, "This is the token that I have looked for. For this eagle is the stranger, and ye are the birds, which before, indeed, have fled, but shall now make ...
— The Children's Hour, Volume 3 (of 10) • Various

... and his face, pale with sorrow and experience, had a new expression. His buttoned-up coat and white collar, so unlike his usual self, also had its suggestions—which Miss Mayfield was at first inclined to resent. Women are quick to notice and augur more or less wisely from these small details. Nevertheless, she began in quite ...
— Jeff Briggs's Love Story • Bret Harte

... they go at a big dead fish if it's lying in the water, take a good mouthful, and then set their long bodies and tails to work, and spin round and round like a gimlet or a ship augur, and bore ...
— Menhardoc • George Manville Fenn

... both, and, we hope, will often have the same pleasure again. The volume is a very agreeable one, with little of the crudeness so generally characteristic of first ventures,—not more than enough to augur richer maturity hereafter. Dead-ripeness in a first book is a fatal symptom, sure sign that the writer is doomed forever to that pale limbo of faultlessness from which there is no ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 30, April, 1860 • Various

... a vain thing to watch the flight of birds across the sky, and augur this or that of their strange ways. We too still watch them in a like mood, and, though we do not interpret them with a like exactitude, we are very sure that they mean something important to our souls, as they speed along their ...
— Vanishing Roads and Other Essays • Richard Le Gallienne

... which both statesmen govern follow their lead in this respect with energetic unanimity; and it is safe to augur the happiest results ...
— Latin America and the United States - Addresses by Elihu Root • Elihu Root

... spite of all this, the city has never ranked as of supreme importance as a European city; nor did it ever attain the rank in Gallic times, that the events which have been woven around it would seem to augur. To-day it is a truly characteristic, large, provincial town of little or no importance to the outside world. Self-sufficient as to its own importance, and the events around which its local life circles, it gives little indication of ever becoming more of a metropolis than it now is; indeed ...
— The Cathedrals of Northern France • Francis Miltoun

... her to fight the world and the devil with no other armory than a good face, a fine nature, and the pride of any heiress. It is true that Rachel also had a voice; but there was never enough of it to augur an income. At twenty, therefore, she was already a governess in the wilds, where women are as scarce as water, but where the man for Rachel did not breathe. A few years later she earned a berth to England as companion to a lady; and her ...
— The Shadow of the Rope • E. W. Hornung

... in want of pleasure and entertainment for his mind? Were it not so, would Anaxagoras, or this very Democritus, have left their estates and patrimonies, and given themselves up to the pursuit of acquiring this divine pleasure? It is thus that the poets who have represented Tiresias the Augur as a wise man and blind never exhibit him as bewailing his blindness. And Homer, too, after he had described Polyphemus as a monster and a wild man, represents him talking with his ram, and speaking of his good fortune, inasmuch as he could go wherever he pleased and touch what he would. And so ...
— Cicero's Tusculan Disputations - Also, Treatises On The Nature Of The Gods, And On The Commonwealth • Marcus Tullius Cicero

... interest me,' said the Prince; 'the more so as I gather that here in Grunewald we are on the brink of revolution. Pray, since these have been your special studies, would you augur hopefully of such ...
— Prince Otto • Robert Louis Stevenson

... consisted in a blind obedience to their chief. O'Sullivan Og himself he believed to be The McMurrough's agent in his more lawless business; a fierce, unscrupulous man, prospering on his lack of scruple. The Colonel could augur nothing but ill from the hands to which he had been entrusted; and worse from the manner in which these savage, half-naked creatures, shambling beside him, stole from time to time a glance at him, as if they fancied they saw the winding-sheet high ...
— The Wild Geese • Stanley John Weyman

... reflection of being parted for ever from their friends, their relatives, and their country? Where shall I find language to paint, in appropriate colours, the horror of mind brought on by thoughts of their future unknown destination, of which they can augur nothing but misery from all that they have yet seen? How shall I make known their situation, while labouring, under painful disease, or while struggling in the suffocating holds of their prisons, like ...
— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the - Abolition of the African Slave-Trade, by the British Parliament (1839) • Thomas Clarkson

... former guide 385 Met me betimes this morning tide, And marshaled, over bank and bourne, The happy path of my return." "The happy path!—what! said he nought Of war, of battle to be fought, 390 Of guarded pass?" "No, by my faith! Nor saw I ought could augur scathe." "O haste thee, Allan, to the kern, —Yonder his tartans I discern; Learn thou his purpose, and conjure 395 That he will guide the stranger sure! What prompted thee, unhappy man? The meanest serf in Roderick's clan Had not been bribed by love or fear, ...
— Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott

... for this one, I undertake to find out whether she will come first of the party. She has sent to ask an audience of me concerning a suit she has in hand. I will profit by the circumstances to come to an explanation with her, about you. She is not over fond of the Choiseul party; and I augur this, because I see that she puts on a more agreeable air towards them." CHAPTER XV The Comte de la Marche, a prince of the blood—Madame de Beauvoir, his mistress—Madame du Barry complains to the prince de Soubise of the princess ...
— "Written by Herself" • Baron Etienne Leon Lamothe-Langon

... town, where he had been slain by a drunken solder of the Scythian legion. The hapless man's body had been found, but Macrinus's informant had assured him that he could entirely rely on the report of his unfortunate colleague, who was a sober and truthful man, as the chief augur ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... pinnata satelles Arboris e trunco serpentis saucia morsu Surrigit ipsa feris transfigens unguibus anguem Semianimum et varia graviter cervice micantem. 4 . . . . . . . Hanc ubi praepetibus pennis lapsuque volantem Conspexit Marius, divini numinis augur, Faustaque signa suae laudis reditusque notavit, Partibus intonuit caeli pater ipse sinistris: Sic ...
— Helps to Latin Translation at Sight • Edmund Luce

... escaped the observation of the two men lying tied under the tree. They cannot divine its meaning, but neither do they augur well of it. Still worse, when Uraga, calling to Galvez to come to him, mutters some words in ...
— The Lone Ranche • Captain Mayne Reid

... without saying how much we were charmed with the little episode of the old curate and his maid, and his ass Marco. It seems to us that Guerrazzi in this chapter has come nearer to the simplicity of nature than in any other part of the book, and we augur favorably from it for his future escape from the perils of a too ambitious style to the serenity ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 5, March, 1858 • Various

... said Rose; "it holds not with your solid wisdom to augur such general evil from the rash enterprise ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott

... first visit ashore was satisfactory, and was thought to augur well for the observations of the Transit. A site was selected for a camp on the eastern point of the bay, to which the name of Point Venus was given, the longitude, according to Cook, 149 degrees 31 minutes West, and to Wharton, 149 degrees 29 minutes West. ...
— The Life of Captain James Cook • Arthur Kitson

... Out of the Elector's country Unoffended; though my home had Thrust me out—the bolts drawn on me— Yet I will not cease to love her. And the trumpet, cause of mischief, I hung gaily on my shoulder. And I augur it shall yet peal Joyful tunes to help me onward. I don't know now to what haven Horse and tempest may yet bear me, Still I look not backward more. Cheerful heart and courage daring Knows no sorrow, nor despairing, ...
— The Trumpeter of Saekkingen - A Song from the Upper Rhine. • Joseph Victor von Scheffel

... was awakened by the step of an armed man who entered her room. Both astonished and frightened at this neglect of propriety, which could augur nothing good, Mary sat up in bed, and parting the curtains, saw standing before her Lord Lindsay of Byres: she knew he was one of her oldest friends, so she asked him in a voice which she vainly tried to make confident, what he wanted of her ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... various exhibitions, and the dealers, where he was commonly regarded by the younger artists who were on speaking terms with him as a tragic old bore, with a head of his own worth painting, however if he could be got to sit—for an augur or ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... emptied into a smaller one, that no time may be lost in boiling it away. Taste the syrup in this smaller kettle; it is almost molasses. Try on that 'neck-yoke' and come, let us help carry sap before dinner. The spiles you see sticking from augur-holes in every maple are made of young sumacs, which are sawed off the right length, and then the pith is punched out with a wire. The clean white-pine buckets, without bails, into which the sap drips from the spiles, are made expressly for this use, and so is that enormous hogshead where the sap ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, May 1844 - Volume 23, Number 5 • Various

... of the Capitoline Museum. We have a note of tonic banter to Tibullus, "jilted by a fickle Glycera," and "droning piteous elegies" (I, xxxiii); a merry riotous impersonation of an imaginary symposium in honour of the newly-made augur Murena (III, 19), with toasts and tipsiness and noisy Bacchanalian songs and rose-wreaths flung about the board; a delicious mockery of reassurance to one Xanthias (II, iv), who has married a maidservant and is ashamed of it. He may yet find out that though fallen ...
— Horace • William Tuckwell

... withdrew from public affairs. He said, "Your misfortunes, madam, and those of the country, had determined me to devote myself to your service. I see that my advice does not accord with your majesty's views. I augur little success from the plan which you have been induced to follow. You are too far from the help you rely on, and you will be lost before it can reach you. I earnestly hope that I may be mistaken in this prophecy. At all events, I am sure of losing ...
— The Peasant and the Prince • Harriet Martineau

... in complete silence. She was even unable to do more than nod a good-bye to him. But she shook Tom's hand in parting, and, with an air that might augur the worst, she asked him to come and see ...
— Tutors' Lane • Wilmarth Lewis

... declare against them. The suitors endeavour to justify their stay, at least till he shall send the queen to the court of Icarius her father; which he refuses. There appears a prodigy of two eagles in the sky, which an augur expounds to the ruin of the suitors. Telemachus the demands a vessel to carry him to Pylos and Sparta, there to inquire of his father's fortunes. Pallas, in the shape of Mentor (an ancient friend of Ulysses), ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer, translated by Alexander Pope

... with her, with all his gentility and his advantages to have allowed Peg to like him and then to deliberately hurt her at the end, just as she was leaving, for a fancied insult, did not augur well for the character ...
— Peg O' My Heart • J. Hartley Manners

... men had gazed upward as he was gazing at birds in flight. The colonnade above him made him think vaguely of an ancient temple and the ashplant on which he leaned wearily of the curved stick of an augur. A sense of fear of the unknown moved in the heart of his weariness, a fear of symbols and portents, of the hawk-like man whose name he bore soaring out of his captivity on osier-woven wings, of Thoth, the god of writers, writing with a reed upon ...
— A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man • James Joyce

... acquire a political meaning. The priest whose duty it was to read the opening formula opened his book by chance at the De Profundis. Thus the marriage was accompanied by circumstances so fateful, so alarming, so annihilating that no one dared to augur well of it. Matters, in fact, went from bad to worse. There was no wedding party; the married pair departed immediately for Prebaudet. Parisian customs, said the community, were about to ...
— The Jealousies of a Country Town • Honore de Balzac

... his Quirinal wand, Tamer of steeds. The augur's gown he wore, Short, striped and belted; and his lifted hand The sacred buckler on the left upbore. Him Circe, his enamoured bride, of yore, Wild with desire, so ancient legends say, Smote with her golden rod, and sprinkling o'er His limbs ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil - Translated into English Verse by E. Fairfax Taylor • Virgil

... quite smitten with her white beauty, amorous of her delicate nature, and as embarrassed to know how he should be able to keep her in her innocence as to explain why oxen chew their food twice over. Although he did not augur to himself any good therefrom, it inflamed him so much to see the exquisite perfections of Blanche during her innocent and gentle sleep, that he resolved to preserve and defend this pretty jewel of love. With tears in his eyes he kissed ...
— Droll Stories, Volume 1 • Honore de Balzac

... suzan; screw, whirligig, rollingstone[obs3], water wheel, windmill; wheel, pulley wheel, roulette wheel, potter's wheel, pinwheel, gear; roller; flywheel; jack; caster; centrifuge, ultracentrifuge, bench centrifuge, refrigerated centrifuge, gas centrifuge, microfuge; drill, augur, oil rig; wagon wheel, wheel, tire, tyre[Brit][Brit]. [Science of rotary motion] trochilics[obs3]. [person who rotates] whirling dervish. V. rotate; roll along; revolve, spin; turn round; circumvolve[obs3]; circulate; gyre, gyrate, wheel, whirl, pirouette; twirl, trundle, troll, bowl. ...
— Roget's Thesaurus

... he must augur some result from it, though his own dejected spirit did not prompt him to deduce a very encouraging one. He thought of all the impostures that are practised upon the credulous, and his imagination suggested some brilliant ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman

... time the Fifth Cavalry reached Fort McPherson, which became its headquarters while they were fitting out a new expedition to go into the Republican River country. At this time General Carr recommended to General Augur, who was in command of the Department, that Will be made chief of scouts in the Department ...
— Last of the Great Scouts - The Life Story of William F. Cody ["Buffalo Bill"] • Helen Cody Wetmore

... I am afraid, a kind of duplicity which does not augur well for your future happiness; and is a bad reply to your own candor and honesty, Arthur. Do you know I think, I think—I scarcely like to say what I think," said Laura, with a deep blush; but of course the blushing young lady yielded ...
— The History of Pendennis, Vol. 2 - His Fortunes and Misfortunes, His Friends and His Greatest Enemy • William Makepeace Thackeray

... sitting, that reclining, was seen full many a knight; They took repose in quiet; around (a fearful sight!) Lay Ruedeger's dead comrades; all was hush'd and still; From that long dreary silence King Etzel augur'd ill. ...
— National Epics • Kate Milner Rabb

... not Quintus Metellus, who saw three of his sons consuls, one of whom was also censor and celebrated a triumph, and a fourth praetor; and who left them all in safety behind him, and who saw his three daughters married, having been himself consul, censor and augur, and having celebrated a triumph; was he not, I say, in your opinion, (supposing him to have been a wise man,) happier than Regulus, who being in the power of the enemy, was put to death by sleeplessness and hunger, though he ...
— The Academic Questions • M. T. Cicero

... remained one in the cradle, An augur, and with Calchas gave the moment, In Aulis, when to ...
— Divine Comedy, Longfellow's Translation, Hell • Dante Alighieri

... May, looking out of his room, 'I augur that the spirit of the flood has something to say to ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge

... creditable to General AMES'S good sense than otherwise. But did it not operate as a trivial disqualification against his coming here to represent Mississippi? Besides, if generals were allowed to elect themselves, where would it end? General AUGUR, he believed, commanded the Indian district. He would send himself to the Senate from that region, and be howling about the Piegan massacre and such outrages upon his constituents, with which the Senate had been sickened already. ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 2, April 9, 1870 • Various

... that, in fact, the child had been removed or destroyed during the illness of the mother. But all knowledge to be got from her is so uncertain and indirect, that I could not collect any farther circumstances. Only the diabolical character of old Murdockson makes me augur the worst." ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott

... North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) with the United States and Canada, its solid record of economic reforms, and its strong growth in the second and third quarters of 1994 - at an annual rate of 3.8% and 4.5% respectively - seemed to augur bright prospects for 1995. However, an overvalued exchange rate and widening current account deficits created an imbalance that ultimately proved unsustainable. To finance the trade gap, Mexico City had become increasingly reliant on volatile ...
— The 1995 CIA World Factbook • United States Central Intelligence Agency

... a coop for this purpose. The manner of divining from them was as follows:—early in the morning, the augur, commanding a general silence, ordered the coop to be opened, and threw down a handful of crumbs or corn: if the chickens did not immediately run to the food, if they scattered it with their wings, if they ...
— Roman Antiquities, and Ancient Mythology - For Classical Schools (2nd ed) • Charles K. Dillaway

... whole we are inclined to believe in the good faith of the Chinese Government in adopting this measure, and to augur well for its success. Next after the change of basis in education, this brave effort to suppress a national vice ranks as the most brilliant in a long series of ...
— The Awakening of China • W.A.P. Martin

... cannot go forward," he said, "with everybody opposed to me." It was on the same day that he made his last public speech, and Sumner, who was strongly opposed to his policy, remarked that "the President's speech and other things augur confusion and uncertainty in the future, with hot contumacy." At a cabinet meeting on the 14th of April, Lincoln made his last statement on the subject. It was fortunate, he said, that Congress had adjourned, for "we shall reanimate the States" before ...
— The Sequel of Appomattox - A Chronicle of the Reunion of the States, Volume 32 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Walter Lynwood Fleming

... been killed. She did not try to understand it, since she could not approach the peculiar relationship between the heads and the bodies of these creatures from the basis of any past knowledge or experience of her own. So far their treatment of her seemed to augur naught that might arouse her fears. Perhaps, after all, she had been fortunate to fall into the hands of these strange people, who might not only protect her from harm, but even aid her in returning to Helium. That they ...
— The Chessmen of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... unhappy advocate for such a plea, and with such a daughter, although she might have been successful with a helpless and submissive girl. With that look in her eyes, which are as cold as steel and have its glitter, one could not augur success for any wooer. It was a tribute not so much to the appearance of Pollock as to the soul of the man shining through his face in most persuasive purity and sincerity, that when they met and turned ...
— Graham of Claverhouse • Ian Maclaren

... help me, will you not!' said Winifred, smiling, though she did not augur well from this opening scene. 'May I ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge

... then attempting to set it on fire, for which exploit the "learned and judicious Bianchi," as Smollett called him in his first edition, was sent to prison for life. The Arrotino which Smollett so greatly admired, and which the delusive Bianchi declared to be a representation of the Augur Attus Naevius, is now described as "A Scythian whetting his knife ...
— Travels Through France and Italy • Tobias Smollett

... Mrs. Bute did not augur much good to the cause from the sending of her son James as an ambassador, and saw him depart in rather a despairing mood. Nor did the young fellow himself, when told what his mission was to be, expect much pleasure or benefit from it; but he was consoled by the thought that possibly ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray

... to say, that I augur nothing but evil, if we in any respect prejudice our title to be a branch of the Apostolic Church? That Article of the Creed, I need hardly observe to your Lordship, is of such constraining power, that, if we will not claim it, and ...
— Apologia pro Vita Sua • John Henry Newman

... this society. Whether it be possible that our hopes be fulfilled according to our expectation the near future will show. But from the success which has attended similar associations in other lands possessed of less spirit, energy, and opportunity than our own, there is no reason to augur ill of the attempt to have here a body of men whose achievements may entitle them to recognise and encourage the appearance of merit in literature, and to lead in science and the useful application of its discoveries. It is proposed, then, that this society shall consist of a certain number ...
— Memories of Canada and Scotland - Speeches and Verses • John Douglas Sutherland Campbell

... the Augur, used to repeat from memory, and in the most pleasant way, many of the sayings of his father-in-law Caius Laelius, never hesitating to apply to him in all that he said his surname of The Wise. When I first put on the robe of manhood [Footnote: ...
— De Amicitia, Scipio's Dream • Marcus Tullius Ciceronis

... young Lucius? Art had vainly tried To guess his ill, and found herself defied. The Augur plied his legendary skill; Useless; the fair young Roman languished still. His chariot took him every cloudless day Along the Pincian Hill or Appian Way; They rubbed his wasted limbs with sulphurous oil, Oozed from the far-off Orient's heated ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... for a wise man. "Perhaps from Maori verb tohu, to think." (Tregear's 'Polynesian Dictionary.') Tohu, a sign or omen; hence Tohunga, a dealer in omens, an augur. ...
— A Dictionary of Austral English • Edward Morris

... used to be undertaken unless with the sanction of the auspices' (auspicato). The right of interrogating the will of the gods, rested, as one might expect, with the master of the house, assisted no doubt by the private augur as the repository of lore and the interpreter of what the master saw. But of the details of domestic augury we know but little. Cato in one passage insists on the extreme importance of silence for the purpose, and Festus suggests that this was secured by the master of the house rising in the depths ...
— The Religion of Ancient Rome • Cyril Bailey

... At the same time they had enough knowledge of astronomy to enable them to fix the days suitable for the transaction of business, public or private. They had the control of the calendar. The Augurs consulted the will of the gods as disclosed in omens. The augur, his eyes raised to the sky, with his staff marked off the heavens into four quarters, and then watched for the passage of birds, from which he took the auspices. In early times, there was an implicit faith in these supposed indications of the will of the divinities; but ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher

... insult with despair!—leaps up, in eager answer to the beseeching sighs, tears, and groans of earth-bent Adoration. And there is the indulged Insolency of a domineering—and as you will precipitately augur—an indomitable Will! And there is exuberant SELF-POWER, that, from the innermost mind, oozing up, out, distilling, circulating along nerve and vein, effects a magical metamorphosis! turns the nymph into a squire of arms; usurping even the clamorous ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLV. July, 1844. Vol. LVI. • Various

... the keep. Here the Carlist chief was seen lolling on a stone bench outside, and smoking a villanous cigar. As the priest approached, he started to his feet with no little surprise on his face, together with a dark and menacing frown, which did not by any means augur well for ...
— A Castle in Spain - A Novel • James De Mille

... some island of the boundless flood Resides a prisoner, by barbarous force 250 Of some rude race detained reluctant there. And I will now foreshow thee what the Gods Teach me, and what, though neither augur skill'd Nor prophet, I yet trust shall come to pass. He shall not, henceforth, live an exile long From his own shores, no, not although in bands Of iron held, but will ere long contrive His own return; ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer

... enter into a union for life without those embarrassments which delight a Darsie Latimer, or a Lydia Languish, and which are perhaps necessary to excite an enthusiastic passion in breasts more firm than theirs, augur worse of their future happiness because their own alliance is formed under calmer auspices. Mutual esteem, an intimate knowledge of each other's character, seen, as in their case, undisguised by the mists of too partial ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott

... find in a village, I found the ugly house in which Minna lodged. The friendly and quiet kindness of manner, however, which was peculiar to her, soon made me feel at home. She was popular at the theatre, and was respected by the managers and actors, a fact which seemed to augur well for her betrothed, the part I was ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner

... immediate isthmus on which we stand ourselves to a past and (prophetically speaking) to a coming world of calamity, the relation of the smiling and halcyon calm which we have inherited to that darkness and anarchy out of which it arose, and towards which too gloomily we augur its return—this relation it is which enforces the other impulses, whether many or few, connecting our own transitional stage of society with objects always of the same interest for man, but not felt to be of the same interest. The sun, the moon, and ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. II (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey

... hundred, and that with thanks from the seller that he got anything from what had long ceased to pay the ghost of a dividend. And loose cash was not scarce with Harold; he was able to buy up an amount which perfectly terrified me, and made me augur that the Hydriot would swallow all Boola Boola, and more too; and as to Mr. Yolland's promises of improvements, no one, after past experience, ...
— My Young Alcides - A Faded Photograph • Charlotte M. Yonge

... on the fleet horses! He has a total world of wit; O how wise are his discourses! But he is the arch-hypocrite, And, through all science and all art, Seeks alone his counterpart. He is a Pundit of the East, He is an augur and a priest, And his soul will melt in prayer, But word and wisdom is a snare; Corrupted by the present toy He follows joy, and only joy. There is no mask but he will wear; He invented oaths to swear; He paints, he carves, he chants, he prays, And holds all ...
— Poems - Household Edition • Ralph Waldo Emerson

... of Denbighshire told me of instances of this belief and he gave circumstantial proof of the truth of his assertion. Akin to this faith is the belief that people have seen coffins or spectral beings enter houses, both of which augur ...
— Welsh Folk-Lore - a Collection of the Folk-Tales and Legends of North Wales • Elias Owen

... force, All-powerful gold can spread its course, Thro' watchful guards its passage make, And loves thro' solid walls to break: From gold the overwhelming woes That crush'd the Grecian augur rose: Philip with gold thro' cities broke, And rival monarchs felt his yoke; Captains of ships to gold are slaves, Tho' fierce as their own winds and ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume IV: The Adventurer; The Idler • Samuel Johnson

... people augur ill from the accession of the Intendant Bigot in New France, besides the Chevalier La Corne," Amelie said after a pause. She disliked censuring ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby

... been told by my friends (if they do not belie me) My promise was such as no parent would scorn; The wise and the aged who prophesied by me, Augur'd nothing but good of me when I ...
— Books for Children - The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 3 • Charles and Mary Lamb

... 6 ft. long, shod with iron, is vertically suspended, about 9 in. above the stump, from a flexible sapling with just sufficient spring in it to raise the pestle to the required height. About 2 ft. from the bottom the hanging beam is pierced with an augur hole and a rounded piece of wood, 1 1/2 in. by 18 in., is driven through to serve as a handle for the man who is to do the pounding. His mate breaks the stone to about 2 in. gauge and feeds the box, lifting the ring from time to time to sweep off ...
— Getting Gold • J. C. F. Johnson

... vexed a quarter so much as Annie was; for I had never half approved of him, as a husband for my sister; in spite of his purchase from Squire Bassett, and the grant of the Royal pardon. It may be, however, that Annie took the same view of my love for Lorna, and could not augur well of it; but if so, she held her peace, though I was not so sparing. For many things contributed to make me less good-humoured now than my real nature was; and the very least of all these things would ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore

... with the fixed determination to lay siege to Mr. Horace Dinsmore's heart, and flattering and petting his little daughter was one of her modes of attack; but his decided disapproval of her present, she perceived, did not augur well for the success of her schemes. She was by no means in despair, however, for she had great confidence in the power of her own personal attractions, being really tolerably pretty, and considering herself a great beauty, as well ...
— Elsie Dinsmore • Martha Finley

... her religious scruples, combined with such pathetic industry, seemed to augur well for the superior worth of this tall, blonde, blue-eyed girl. I was anxious to make a friend of her, and accordingly proffered my services until Phoebe should come to claim me. She accepted gladly, and for the first time ...
— The Long Day - The Story of a New York Working Girl As Told by Herself • Dorothy Richardson

... the North which accompanied the repeal of the Missouri Compromise did not augur well for the future repose of the country. Douglas had anticipated angry demonstrations; but even he was disturbed by the vehemence of the protestations which penetrated to the Senate chamber. Had he failed ...
— Stephen A. Douglas - A Study in American Politics • Allen Johnson

... superiority, as again evidenced in the sonnet to the Lady Mary, has fixed anew my resolve as to my predestined field of labor. Not for my brow shall be woven the Poet's garland of bays. Yet abundant self-confidence is mine, and I augur that in the great work for which I would fain believe the ages are waiting, will be made clear my award to be the high priest of Nature. Exact sciences not yet born shall be my servitors and the augmenters of my fame. By the methods I have discerned shall mankind ...
— Shakespeare's Insomnia, And the Causes Thereof • Franklin H. Head

... Here the "tiger rose," like some savage queen of beauty, rose to his knees and breathed her sultry balm in his face. Aloof stood the shy wild rose, shedding its scent with delicate reserve; but the wild pea, and the convolvulus, and the augur flower, and the insipid daisy, ran riot through all the grass land, and surfeited his nostrils with their sweets. Here and there upon the mellow level stood a clump of poplars or white oaks, prim, like virgins without suitors, with their robes drawn close ...
— The Story of Louis Riel: The Rebel Chief • Joseph Edmund Collins

... sympathy. The fact that for years his name had been most prominently associated with every movement making for unity within the Empire; that he had striven valiantly for many years against the anti-British forces of disintegration; this was admitted to augur well for the success of the Conference of Colonial representatives then holding its first sitting ...
— The Message • Alec John Dawson

... refusal to relinquish it. Some people decided that thus he meant to enrich his granddaughter without impoverishing Abbotsmead for his successor, but Mr. John Short's manner to the young lady was tinctured with a respectful compassion that did not augur well for ...
— The Vicissitudes of Bessie Fairfax • Harriet Parr

... part of Indian medicine. The formulas therefor are the special property of the medicine-men, whom we shall hereafter designate with the much more appropriate name of Shamans. The shaman is wizard and physician at the same time. He is also a prophet, augur, and oracle. His duty it is not only to protect from evil, but to counteract it. He has charms and incantations which he offers for the production of ...
— The Delight Makers • Adolf Bandelier

... bless, nor curse Openly love's force, nor in bed fright thy nurse With midnight startings, crying out, Oh, oh, Nurse, oh, my love is slain, I saw him go O'er the white Alps alone; I saw him, I, Assail'd, fight, taken, stabb'd, bleed, fall, and die, Augur me better chance, except dread Jove Think it enough for me to have ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin

... Germanicus Caesar, son of Tiberius Augustus, grandson of the divine Augustus, great grandson of the divine Julius, augur, priest of Augustus, consul for the second time, emperor for the ...
— Barn and the Pyrenees - A Legendary Tour to the Country of Henri Quatre • Louisa Stuart Costello

... dream;—fish take the place Of men; on banners falcons fly, Displacing snakes and tortoises. The augur tells his prophecy:— "The first betoken plenteous years; the change Of banners shows ...
— Chinese Literature • Anonymous

... waves of the clouds? And know ye what aerial condor, dragon, and whale, respectively portend? Are the Fata Morgana as familiar to you as the Aberdeen Almanac? When a mile-square hover of crows darkens air and earth, or settling loads every tree with sable fruitage, are you your own augur, equally as when one raven lifts up his hoary blackness from a stone, and sails sullenly off with a croak, that gets fiercer and more savage in the lofty distance? Does the leaf of the forest twinkle futurity? ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson

... god. It happen'd once (a boding prodigy!) A swarm of bees, that cut the liquid sky, (Unknown from whence they took their airy flight,) Upon the topmost branch in clouds alight; There with their clasping feet together clung, And a long cluster from the laurel hung. An ancient augur prophesied from hence: "Behold on Latian shores a foreign prince! From the same parts of heav'n his navy stands, To the same parts on earth; his army lands; The town he conquers, ...
— The Aeneid • Virgil

... speedy gallop to El Hakim, and communicated with him. Four or five more cavaliers had then been dispatched, and the little band, which might consist of about twenty or thirty persons, began to follow them with their eyes, as men from whose gestures, and advance or retreat, they were to augur good or evil. Hassan, finding his audience inattentive, or being himself attracted by the dubious appearances on the flank, stinted in his song; and the march became silent, save when a camel-driver called out to his patient charge, or some anxious follower of the Hakim communicated with his next ...
— The Talisman • Sir Walter Scott

... Syrian warfare, a large military detachment was entering at some point of Syria from the desert of the Euphrates. At the head of the whole array rode two men of some distinction: one was an augur of high reputation, the other was a Jew called Mosollam, a man of admirable beauty, a matchless horseman, an unerring archer, and accomplished in all martial arts. As they were now first coming within enclosed grounds, after a long march in the wilderness, the augur ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey

... appointment with a select audience. Soon, I don't know where the wall is, or where I am, or where anybody is, but after a bloody tangle and tussle in the trodden grass, feeling very queer about the head, I awake, and augur justly that the victory is not mine. I am taken home in a sad plight, to have beef-steaks put to my eyes, and am rubbed with vinegar and brandy, and find a great white puffy place on my upper lip, and for several days I remain in the house with a green shade over my eyes, and yet feeling that ...
— Ten Boys from Dickens • Kate Dickinson Sweetser

... Diodotus the Stoic, and in 88 B.C. attended the lectures of Philo, the head of the Academic school, whose devoted pupil he became. He studied rhetoric under Molo (Molon) of Rhodes, and law under the guidance of Q. Mucius Scaevola, the augur and jurisconsult. After the death of the augur, he transferred himself to the care of Q. Mucius Scaevola, the pontifex maximus, a still more famous jurisconsult, nephew of the augur. His literary education at this period ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 3 - "Chitral" to "Cincinnati" • Various

... agreed with Mr. Fox, that from a full discussion of the subject there was every reason to augur, that the abolition would be adopted. Under the imputations, with which this trade was loaded, gentlemen should remember, they could not do justice to their own characters, unless they stood up, and gave their reasons for opposing the abolition of it. It was unusual also to force any ...
— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the Abolition of the African Slave Trade by the British Parliament (1808) • Thomas Clarkson

... Those barbarians, with their half-nakedness, their grossness, their ferocity, their ignorance, and their impiety, were revolting. They committed murder and devastation like dolts. They left their dead on the field, without burial. They engaged in battle without consulting priest or augur. It was not only their goods, but their families, their life, the honor of their country, and the sanctuary of their religion, that the Greeks were defending, and they might rely on the protection of the gods. The oracle of Apollo had answered, "I and the white virgins will provide for this matter." ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume I. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot

... A trough, usually made of a butternut log about three feet long, was dug out, Indian fashion, and placed under the end of the spout. These troughs were made deep enough to hold about ten quarts. In later years a hole was bored in the tree with an augur; and sap-buckets were used instead ...
— Home Life in Colonial Days • Alice Morse Earle

... augur well of our children, and we are continually regretting the flood of folly which overwhelms the hopes we would fain have rested on some chance phrase. If my scholar rarely gives me cause for such prophecies, neither will he give ...
— Emile • Jean-Jacques Rousseau

... happens to be in one's mind when one is with others has an effect, even if one says or does nothing to indicate one's preoccupation. A certain amount of this comes from an unconscious inference on the part of the recipients. We often augur, without any very definite rational process, from the facial expressions, gestures, movements, tones of others, what their frame of mind is. But I believe that there is a great deal more than that. We must all know that when we are with friends to whose ...
— Where No Fear Was - A Book About Fear • Arthur Christopher Benson

... connexion of human events! We presume we shall demonstrate the positive existence of such a faculty; a faculty which Lord Bacon describes of "making things FUTURE and REMOTE AS PRESENT." The aruspex, the augur, and the astrologer have vanished with their own superstitions; but the moral and the political predictor, proceeding on principles authorised by nature and experience, has become more skilful in his observations on the phenomena of human history; and it has often happened that a tolerable ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli

... which, furnished with a peculiar augur adaptation at its head, bores into timber, forming a shell as it progresses. They attain the length of three feet or more, with a diameter of one inch or less. Even if the ship be destroyed by them, the loss is not within the ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth

... as it seemed to augur badly for the welfare of our expedition, gave me much concern and anxiety. My two blacks, the companions of my reconnoitring excursions, began to show evident signs of discontent, and to evince a spirit of disobedience which, if not checked, might prove fatal to our safety. During ...
— Journal of an Overland Expedition in Australia • Ludwig Leichhardt

... assuming command Banks ordered Grover to take all the troops that were in condition for service at once to Baton Rouge, under the protection of the fleet, and there disembark and go into camp. Augur was specially charged with the arrangements for the despatch of the troops from New Orleans. Before starting they were carefully inspected, and all that were found to be affected with disease of a contagious or infectious character were ...
— History of the Nineteenth Army Corps • Richard Biddle Irwin

... lesser crowd: the Vestals come By priestess led with laurel crown bedecked, To whom alone is given the right to see Minerva's effigy that came from Troy (27). Next come the keepers of the sacred books And fate's predictions; who from Almo's brook Bring back Cybebe laved; the augur too Taught to observe sinister flight of birds; And those who serve the banquets to the gods; And Titian brethren; and the priest of Mars, Proud of the buckler that adorns his neck; By him the Flamen, on his noble head The cap of office. While they tread the path That winds ...
— Pharsalia; Dramatic Episodes of the Civil Wars • Lucan

... number of four, except by the death of two, I do not understand: for it is a rule among the augurs, that their number should be composed of threes, so that the three ancient tribes, the Ramnes, Titienses, and Luceres, should have each its own augur; or, in case there should be occasion for more, that each should increase its number of augurs, in equal proportion with the rest, in like manner as when, by the addition of five to four, they made up the number nine, so that there were three to each tribe. However, as it was proposed that they ...
— The History of Rome; Books Nine to Twenty-Six • Titus Livius

... bad and corrupt as many of them are, and imperfect as they all must necessarily be, nevertheless at times exhibit scenes of true moral sublimity. What I have today witnessed has so, impressed me; and were I a believer in omens, I would augur from the tranquil beauty of the evening—from the clear sky and the lovely sunset hues on the waters of the bay—more than all, from the joyous expression of every face I see, a glorious and prosperous career for the State ...
— A Tramp Through the Bret Harte Country • Thomas Dykes Beasley

... and closer to the catafalque rest the familiar faces of many of our greatest generals—the manly features of Augur, whose blood I have seen trickling forth upon the field of battle; the open almost, beardless contour of Halleck, who has often talked of sieges and campaigns with this homely gentleman who is going to the grave. There are many more bright stars ...
— The Life, Crime and Capture of John Wilkes Booth • George Alfred Townsend

... Japanese students from the public schools of San Francisco, 1906, seemed for a time to augur grave results. One-half of the ninety Japanese who were in attendance upon these schools were above sixteen years of age and were taught in the classes with little children. The order of the San Francisco school board excluding the Japanese was in harmony with the California ...
— History of the United States, Volume 6 (of 6) • E. Benjamin Andrews

... left alone to indulge in a short soliloquy, and certain smart spirit-rappings are heard to proceed immediately from beneath her feet, we foretell that a song is impending. When two gentlemen enter, for whom, by a happy coincidence, two chairs, and no more, are in waiting, we augur a conversation, and that it will assume a retrospective biographical character. When any of the performers who belong to the sea-faring or marauding professions are observed to arm themselves with very ...
— Speeches: Literary and Social • Charles Dickens

... have it long, if they treat it as recklessly as that," commented Bert, for the two lads having leaped into the auto, Sam threw in the gears so clumsily that the machine was stalled, with a grinding that did not augur well for ...
— Tom Fairfield's Pluck and Luck • Allen Chapman

... settled; and soon after, in the Church of St Mary Overies, Southwark, so often alluded to in the 'Life of Gower,' the happy pair were wed. It seemed a most auspicious event for both countries, and to augur the substitution of permanent peace for casual and temporary truces. To Lady Jane Beaufort it gave a crown, and a noble, gallant, and gifted prince to share it withal. On James it bestowed a lady of great beauty, who was regarded, too, with gratitude ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan

... would augur works and ways Below the lowest that man assays To have hurled that stone Into the sunshine ...
— Moments of Vision • Thomas Hardy

... thee not to augur, quick-eared Shade. Ephemeral at the best all honours be, These even more ephemeral than their ...
— The Dynasts - An Epic-Drama Of The War With Napoleon, In Three Parts, - Nineteen Acts, And One Hundred And Thirty Scenes • Thomas Hardy

... Augur holes could be bored in them at various distances and angles, if not too acute; the thing was to find glass, in bottle or other forms, to fit in the openings. This difficulty was solved by The Man from Everywhere ...
— The Garden, You, and I • Mabel Osgood Wright

... referred rather to the lessons of thrift, economy, cooeperation, and social uplift, which given renewed impetus by our experiences during this war, will set to work among the Negro people forces which augur for success. ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 4, 1919 • Various

... "Good-bye, Aaron; I augur well of your undertaking. The auspices are favorable. We are engaged in a scheme full of danger, requiring enterprise; but, if successful, fraught ...
— A Dream of Empire - Or, The House of Blennerhassett • William Henry Venable

... foreshowing and the bloom of sixteen years, may augur of the finish and the fruit of the three-score and ten, which are the sum of human ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 1 July 1848 • Various

... spare for any one else, or if she had, Miss Wells, who had the less claim on her was preferred to Cousin Honor. 'Father' was almost her religion; though well taught, and unusually forward in religious knowledge, as far as Honora dared to augur, no motive save her love for him had a substantive existence, as touching her feelings or ruling her actions. For him she said her prayers and learnt her hymns; for him she consented to learn to hem ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge

... during the fateful twelve days of July-August, 1914, when they refused any outside mediation and insisted on direct conversations between Russia and Austria, whilst the punitive military expedition of the latter against Servia had to take its course. In so far their suggestion would not augur well for ...
— Face to Face with Kaiserism • James W. Gerard

... desired to know the cause of a metamorphosis so singular and so absolute, Wayland only answered by singing a stave from a comedy, which was then new, and was supposed, among the more favourable judges, to augur some genius on the part of the author. We are happy to preserve the couplet, ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott

... after, she carried Her shame from the Court, and they married, To that marriage some happiness, maugre The voice of the Court, I dared augur." ...
— Browning's Heroines • Ethel Colburn Mayne

... doubts, perhaps I have them still, But what I say is neither here nor there: I knew his father well, and have some skill In character—but it would not be fair From sire to son to augur good or ill: He and his wife were an ill-sorted pair— But scandal 's my aversion—I protest Against all evil ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron

... science; and in the other churches, especially in America, while there is yet much to be desired, the welcome extended in many of them to Alexander Winchell, and the freedom given to views like his, augur well for a better state of things ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White

... them, who was the critic of the Fatherland, suddenly left the country, Bjoernstjerne Bjoernson took his place. The three names, R. Nielsen, B. Bjoernson, and Rudolph Schmidt, formed a trinity whose supremacy did not augur well for the success of a beginner in the paths of literature, who had attacked the thinker among them for ideal reasons, and who had been the object of violent attacks from the two others. The magazine Idea and Reality, was, as might ...
— Recollections Of My Childhood And Youth • George Brandes

... augur must when he meets another. The hakim, still squatting, slid over his hookah with a friendly foot, and Kim pulled at the good weed. The hangers-on expected grave professional debate, and perhaps a ...
— Kim • Rudyard Kipling

... told Miss Dagget and she told the Editor of the Augur's wife, and she told Ben Lowry's widder, and she told the Editor of the Gimlet's mother-in-law, and she told me. It come straight, that Serenus only stayed there nights and to a early breakfast, but spent his hull durin' ...
— Samantha at Coney Island - and a Thousand Other Islands • Marietta Holley

... that virgins augur some Misfortune if their shoe-strings come To grief on Friday: And so did Di,—and then her pride Decreed that shoe-strings ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 4 (of 4) • Various

... appearance of the entrails of beasts sacrificed, etc., etc. These augurs were, for a long time, much respected in Rome, but, at last, the more thoughtful people lost their belief in them, and they became so ridiculous that Cicero, who was himself one of them, said he could not see how one augur could look another ...
— The Humbugs of the World • P. T. Barnum

... self-poised in the midst of disasters, which he acknowledged had befallen us. And he admitted that there had been errors in our war policy. We had attempted operations on too extensive a scale, thus diffusing our powers which should have been concentrated. I like these candid confessions. They augur a different policy hereafter, and we may hope for better results in the future. We must all stand up ...
— A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital • John Beauchamp Jones

... afflicted with cruel anguish, and threatened with loss of the use of the limb," the only remedy in such cases being the application of the twigs of a shrew ash, which was an ash-tree into which a large hole had been bored with an augur, into which a poor little shrew was thrust alive and plugged up (see Brand's 'Popular Antiquities' for a description of the ceremonies). It is pleasant to think that such barbarities have now ceased, for though shrew ashes are to be found in various parts ...
— Natural History of the Mammalia of India and Ceylon • Robert A. Sterndale



Words linked to "Augur" :   oracle, vaticinator, prophesier, seer, Roma, capital of Italy, indicate, foreshow, Eternal City, call, promise, predict, point, anticipate, threaten, prophet, antiquity, Italian capital, signal, forebode, Rome, bespeak



Copyright © 2024 Dictionary One.com