Make Your Point: AUGUR

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pronounce AUGUR:

OGG ur

connect this word to others:

As I mentioned recently when we checked out the word augment, augur belongs to a family of words related to the Latin augere, "to enlarge, to enrich, or to increase." We'll see why in just a second.

The augere family includes other words about growth and increments, like auction, auxiliary, and, surprisingly, author. Could you explain what an author does, in the etymological sense?

definition:

"Augur" comes from Latin and may have first meant "an increase in crop yields by means of a holy ritual." In ancient Rome, an augur was a priest who observed the movements of the heavens, as well as the behavior of birds in the skies, to interpret the will of the gods and to recommend the best courses of action for commerce, warfare, and, I assume, making sure the crops grew as much as possible.

That was the original sense of "augur" in English, too—"a person who interprets heavenly signs"—and by 1570 or so we were also using it mean "a person who seems to be able to speak for the gods or predict the future."

We turned "augur" into a verb, also. To augur is to divine, to predict, to foretell.

The meaning has weakened and narrowed a bit, and these days, we almost always use "augur" as a verb meaning "to show or suggest that some specific thing (good or bad) will happen."

grammatical bits:

Part of speech:

Most often a verb, and most often the transitive kind: "Fiona Apple's first album, 'Tidal,' sold about three million copies, auguring a long and successful career."

Sometimes the intransitive kind: "'Tidal' sold about three million copies, auguring well for Apple's career."

Other forms:

The other verb forms are "augured" and "auguring."

You might bump into "augur" now and then being used as a noun, the countable kind. It might mean "a sign, an omen, an indication," as in "Some people still see black cats as augurs of doom." Or it might have that older meaning of "someone who interprets signs from gods and/or foretells the future."

how to use it:

Pick the formal, semi-common word "augur" when you want to sound slightly mystical as you connect the dots between two events.

Say that some event has augured another one, such as an arrival, a departure, an invention, a change, a trend, or a conflict.

Or, just say that something augurs well, augurs success, augurs poorly, or augurs disaster, often for someone or something. "If I wake up before my alarm, that augurs well for me; I know it'll be a productive day." Here's the Guardian: "Jurassic World's box office success augurs well for an excellent 2015 for Hollywood."

examples:

"Let's hope the quality and even pacing of this first episode augur well for the rest of the series."
— Viv Groskop, The Guardian, 7 January 2013

"If the foldable mirror operates as planned, the mission could augur a new way to launch giant telescopes too big to fit on rockets."
— Dennis Overbye, New York Times, 20 December 2021

has this page helped you understand "augur"?

Awesome, I'm glad it helped!

Thanks for letting me know!
If you have any questions about this term, please message me at Liesl@HiloTutor.com.

study it:

Explain the meaning of "augur" without saying "bode" or "adumbrate."

try it out:

Talk about something that augurs well for you.

In other words, what might happen that could augur a happy day for you, or augur an exciting week for you, or augur a period of social or intellectual growth for you?

before you review, play:

Try to spend 20 seconds or more on the game below. Don’t skip straight to the review—first, let your working memory empty out.

Our game this month is "CLICKBAIT THIS!"

Summon your creativity and dismiss your sense of decency as you invent a clickbaity description: one that's urgent, exaggerated, ungrammatical, conspiratorial, utterly false, emotionally abrasive, vaguely revelatory, full of feigned shock, and/or bloated with capital letters, question marks, exclamation points, and/or emojis. Get in there and be shameless.

If you're sufficiently disgusted with your clickbait, share it with a friend and see if they can guess its subject. I'll also share mine with you to see if you can guess it.

Clickbait this today: A musician or musical group of your choice.

Try guessing my musician or musical group: THIS GUY LITERALLY WON'T STOP DOING THIS AND SIGNING THAT ALL TO GET WHAT HE WANTS (YOU WILL NEVER GUESS WHO HE MEETS AT THIS DRUGSTORE 🍒🍒🍒)

Scroll all the way down for the answer to mine.

review this word:

1. Some event that is not at all AUGURED might be

A. RED-LETTER: important and memorable in a happy way.
B. a BLACK SWAN: startling, surprising, and unpredictable.
C. WHITEWASHED: bad, but covered up so as to appear more respectable.

2. Reflecting on the start of Colin Kaepernick's football career, Bryan Armen Graham wrote: "The young quarterback came alive. He made one play after another and chipped away at the deficit... The ingenue's finishing kick augured _____."

A. through the entire stadium
B. a future of limitless promise
C. his strength and rushing ability

a final word:

I hope you're enjoying Make Your Point. It's made with love.

I'm Liesl Johnson, a reading and writing tutor on a mission to explore, illuminate, and celebrate words.

From my blog:
On vocabulary...
  36 ways to study words.
  Why we forget words, & how to remember them.
  How to use sophisticated words without being awkward.
On writing...
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How to motivate our kids to write.
How to stop procrastinating and start writing.
How to bulk up your writing when you have to meet a word count.

From my heart: a profound thanks to the generous patrons, donors, and sponsors that make it possible for me to write these emails. If you'd like to be a patron or a donor, please click here. If you'd like to be a sponsor and include your ad in an issue, please contact me at Liesl@HiloTutor.com.

A disclaimer: When I write definitions, I use plain language and stick to the words' common, useful applications. If you're interested in authoritative and multiple definitions of words, I encourage you to check a dictionary. Also, because I'm American, I stick to American English when I share words' meanings, usage, and pronunciations; these elements sometimes vary across world Englishes.

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