portend

Etymology

Borrowed from Latin portendere (“to foretell”), from por- (“forward”) + tendere (“to stretch”), present active infinitive of tendo.

verb

  1. (transitive) To serve as a warning or omen of.
  2. (transitive) To signify; to denote.
    Let it be known that the Rapture portends the End of Days.
    When the staccato, Neptunes-ian single “Boyfriend” was released in March, musical prognosticators were quick to peg the album it portended, Believe, as Justin Bieber’s Justified, a grown-and-sexy, R&B-centric departure that evolved millennial teenybopper Justin Timberlake into one of the unifying pop-music figures of the aughts. 26 June 2012, Genevieve Koski, “Music: Reviews: Justin Bieber: Believe”, in The A.V. Club, archived from the original on 2020-08-06

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