Word of the Day

Wednesday March 31, 2010

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auspicious [aw-SPISH-uhs]

adjective

1. Giving promise of success, prosperity, or happiness; predicting good; as, an auspicious beginning.
2. Prosperous; fortunate; as, auspicious years.

• The most legitimate criticism of Obama is that his vision of shared sacrifice hasn't involved much sharing, and the hard choices he talks about remain to be made. It's an open question whether he's got the spine to stand up to congressional leaders. The omens - dropping a plan to tackle Social Security reform and abdicating responsibility for the omnibus spending bill - are not auspicious.
  Ruth Marcus , "What Left Turn?; Obama Is Doing Pretty Much What He Promised", The Washington Post, Mar 11, 2009
• Redding's task became more complicated after he was delayed by shoulder soreness - the result of his hurrying back from minor toe surgery - and yesterday's debut was not auspicious. Redding replaced Garcia for the third inning and failed to finish it. He gave up five hits and five runs, allowing back-to-back homers to junior first baseman Mike Dufek and senior rightfielder Nick Urban.
  David Lennon, "METS: Who'll take the fifth?", Newsday, Mar 9, 2009
• It opens his designs to his family, it introduces you among them, it diffuses through the party those pleasant feelings of our nature – eager curiosity and warm prepossession. How cheerful, how animated, how auspicious, how busy their imaginations all are!' Harriet smiled again, and her smiles grew stronger.
  Jane Austen (1775-1817) English novelist. Emma (1816)

Origin of the Word

Auspicious, approximately 1596, derives from Latin ‘auspicium’, an omen, divination by observing the flight of birds, from auspex "one who observes or looks at the habits of birds for purposes of divination," from avis, "bird" + specere, "to look, to look at."