1.
ADJ-GRADED
（指说话、写作或举止）自命不凡的，装腔作势的 If someone's way of speaking, writing, or behaving is portentous, they speak, write, or behave more seriously than necessary because they want to impress other people.
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There was nothing portentous or solemn about him. He was bubbling with humour.
他一点也不装腔作势或故作严肃，浑身散发着幽默。
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...portentous prose.
矫揉的散文
portentously
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'The difference is,' he said portentously, 'you are Anglo-Saxons, we are Latins.'
他拿腔拿调地说道：“区别在于你们是盎格鲁—撒克逊人，我们是拉丁人。”
2.
ADJ-GRADED
预示未来的；影响重大的 Something that is portentous is important in indicating or affecting future events.
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In social politics, too, the city's contribution to 20th century thought and culture was no less portentous...
同样从社会政治学上看，城市对20世纪思想、文化的贡献也意义重大。
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Portentous choices were forced on him by the dozen.
众多事关重大的抉择强加在了他身上。
- Adjective
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1. of momentous or ominous significance;
- "such a portentous...monster raised all my curiosity"- Herman Melville
- "a prodigious vision"
- synonym： prodigious
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2. of ominous significance
- synonym： fateful，foreboding(a)
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3. puffed up with vanity;
- "a grandiloquent and boastful manner"
- "overblown oratory"
- "a pompous speech"
- "pseudo-scientific gobbledygook and pontifical hooey"- Newsweek
- synonym： grandiloquent，overblown，pompous，pontifical
- 1. The present aspect of society is portentous of great change.
- 现在的社会预示着重大变革的发生。
来自《简明英汉词典》
