augur

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The Word of the Day for March 22 is:

augur   \AW-gur\   verb
     1 : to foretell especially from omens
    *2 : to give promise of : presage

Example sentence:
     California's unusually cold winter does not augur well for the citrus crop.

Did you know? 
     Auguring is what augurs did in ancient Rome. These were official diviners 
whose function it was, not to foretell the future, but to divine whether the 
gods approved of a proposed undertaking, such as a military move. They did so 
by various means, among them observing the behavior of birds and examining the 
entrails of sacrificed animals. Nowadays, the "foretell" sense of the verb is 
often used with an adverb, such as "well," as in our example sentence. "Augur" 
comes from Latin and is related to the Latin verb "augere," meaning "to 
increase." 

*Indicates the sense illustrated by the example sentence.




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