Word: omened
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...developed around "Hallow E'en" (Hallow Evening), many deriving at least in part from the holiday's earlier pagan incarnation. It became traditional to eat nuts and apples; the nuts were especially important because young girls were encouraged to watch them as they roasted, interpreting their behavior as an omen of the faithfulness or inconstancy of their beloveds--if the nut cracked or jumped, one was thought to be in trouble. The relationship between this custom and the Celtic belief in the power of New Year prophesies seems clear enough. Other traditions of note included "bobbing for apples...
...Hard Boiled), has made his smartest, wildest, positively Woo-siest American thriller. Working from a vigorous script by Mike Werb and Michael Colleary, Woo weaves his familiar touches--the slo-mo, the gleaming candles, the long coats flying in the breeze, the doves flying in a chapel as an omen of death--around the central fantasy of male bonding gone berserk...
Franzen displays a striking talent for turning an implausible plot into a convincing omen. Middle-class flight, a shriveled tax base and the usual urban rumpuses encourage St. Louis authorities to hire S. Jammu, a woman related to Indira Gandhi, to run its police department. Soon Jammu and her imported Indian co-conspirators launch a power grab that includes Orwellian public relations, kidnappings and pet assassinations. Franzen's twisty plot and thriller pace are the sweeteners that mask his caustic commentary on urban decline...
Hale has found that the arrival of a major comet--especially so near the end of a millennium--is still widely regarded as an omen of upheaval and disaster. Several Christian Fundamentalists, he writes in the current issue of Skeptical Inquirer, have proclaimed Hale-Bopp to be one of the "signs of the end times" foretold in the New Testament. They also suggest that the comet might be the object described in Revelation 8: 10 as a great star named Wormwood that "fell from heaven, blazing like a torch." Wormwood, according to the Bible, destroys a third of almost everything...
...drove along a thin, wooded road and found the entryway into the ranch: laser-guarded, barbed-wired and accompanied by the anxious grrrrr of concealed attack Dobermans. A good omen--they had something in there worth hiding. A walk around the property's perimeter at first yielded only more of the same. Then we turned a corner and through the trees saw children playing a game of some sort--little houses moved around a board with sticks. The children spotted Lori and me and several of them came over...