inauspicious

Etymology

It is formed from English in- + auspicious,^{[2][3][4][5][6]} the base adjective being from Latin auspicium (“divination by observing the flight of birds”), from auspex, with the suffix -ous.^[3][2] The Latin adjective was inauspicātus (“without auspices, with bad auspices”), which had a brief career in English in the 17th century as inauspicate.^[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

Not of good omen, foreboding evil: 1599, in Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet,^[2] in the line "shake the yoke of inauspicious stars".^[7] Etymonline dates the word to the 1590s and Dictionary.com to 1585–95.^[3][6]

Semantic evolution

Early use kept close to the idea of omens: Johnson (1755) glossed the word "ill-omened; unlucky; unfortunate" and quoted Boyle on the "inauspicious influence" of stars,^[7] and the Shorter Oxford quotes Cowley's crow foretelling some ill.^[5] The Historical Thesaurus classes the sense under evil omens, under calamity and also under a lack of promise.^[8] The Oxford Dictionary of English now puts "not conducive to success" first and "unlucky" second,^[9] and the American Heritage Dictionary says simply "not favorable".^[10] The derivatives are recorded from the 17th century: inauspiciousness from the middle of it and inauspiciously from its end.^[5]

Timeline

• 1599 – of evil omen, unlucky, foreboding evil.^[2][8]
• mid 17th century – the noun inauspiciousness.^[5]
• late 17th century – the adverb inauspiciously.^[5]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Not favourable or likely to lead to success; unpromising: The tour had an inauspicious opening, with half the seats empty.^[9][10][11]
2. Of bad omen; unlucky.^{[2][4][5][11]}

Word family

• inauspiciously
• inauspiciousness

Related words

• auspicious
• auspice

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
5. ^ a b c d e f Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
7. ^ a b Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
8. ^ a b Kay, Christian; Roberts, Jane; Samuels, Michael; Wotherspoon, Irené, eds. (2009), Historical Thesaurus of the Oxford English Dictionary, Oxford: Oxford University Press; online edition (2024)
9. ^ a b Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
10. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
11. ^ a b Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins