Other Definitions
omen (dict)
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OmenThis article is about Omens as divinatory portents. For the 1976 Horror Film, see The Omen. Omens are signs encountered fortuitously that are believed to foretell the future. Their interpretation is a form of divination. The augur and haruspex of ancient Rome were professional readers of omens. The augurs tried to read the future in the flight of birds. The haruspex sought omens in the entrails of sacrificed animals. Other omens are believed to be less systemic. The superstition that if you break a mirror you will suffer seven years of bad luck is an example of such an omen. In various forms of astrology, solar and lunar eclipses are thought to foretell births, deaths, or other important world developments. Princess Diana is sometimes cited as an example of such phenomenon, due to solar and lunar eclipses occurring on or close to the day of significant events in her life, to include her wedding to Prince Charles, on July 29, 1981 and the birth of her son, Prince William, on June 21, 1982. Additionally, she was formally separated from Prince Charles on December 9, 1992, the day of a lunar eclipse, and was killed in a car crash in Paris, France, one day after a solar eclipse (August 31, 1997). Skeptics of astrology (and related fields of divination and clairvoyance) frequently contend that such occurrences are coincidence, and / or that meaningful events can only be associated with portents after they have already occurred, devaluating them as a means of prediction. There is significant debate on the topic even to this day.
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