[f. FOREBODE v. + -ER1.] One who or that which forebodes; † a prognosticator.
1687. R. L’Estrange, Answ. Diss., 43. These Fore-boders, are Undoubtedly the most Pernicious of Wizzards, and Fortune-Tellers.
1782. Burns, Song.
| O why the deuce should I repine, | |
| And be an ill foreboder? | |
| I’m twenty-three, and five feet nine, | |
| I’ll go and be a sodger! |
1805. Wordsw., Waggoner, III. 129.
| This explanation stilled the alarm, | |
| Cured the foreboder like a charm. |
1876. Bancroft, Hist. U. S., IV. xxxiv. 568. Freeholders, whose pride in their liberties and confidence in their power to defend the fields which their own hands had reclaimed, were checked by merchants whose treasures were afloat, and who feared a war as the foreboder of their own bankruptcy.
