What's the difference between ominous and sinister?

Ominous


Definition:

  • (a.) Of or pertaining to an omen or to omens; being or exhibiting an omen; significant; portentous; -- formerly used both in a favorable and unfavorable sense; now chiefly in the latter; foreboding or foreshowing evil; inauspicious; as, an ominous dread.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Indeed, his reaction to the nationwide citizens' revolt reveals ominous parallels with another autocratic leader who has recently found himself in a tight spot: Vladimir Putin.
  • (2) As with other malignant salivary gland tumors, advanced stage and pain as a presenting symptom were ominous findings.
  • (3) We reached the following conclusions: The incidence of operative phrenic nerve injury in infants undergoing lateral thoracotomy, particularly for Blalock-Taussig shunt, is higher than generally appreciated; plication is a safe procedure as performed by either an abdominal or thoracic approach; failure to achieve extubation within a week of plication is an ominous prognostic sign; mortality in patients with eventration in the presence of major associated conditions may be high despite plication.
  • (4) A decrease of the activities of all dehydrogenases examined appeared to be prognostically ominous, correlating with a score of 7 or higher.
  • (5) In our report we document that myelofibrosis associated with breast cancer is not an ominous sign.
  • (6) In a comment likely to be seen as ominous at the White House, Comey said the inquiry was “very complex and there is no way for me to give you a timetable as to when it will be done”.
  • (7) Ominous fetal heart rate patterns were less common in hypertensive women without these risk factors; still the significant differences in comparison with normotensive women remained.
  • (8) The presence of liquid neutral fat without an intra-articular fracture is an ominous sign of a significant soft tissue injury.
  • (9) The tracings were scored blindly according to severity of abnormal patterns, and the infants were grouped into ominous, intermediate, and normal scores.
  • (10) The point made here is that loss of biodiversity should be as ominous for microbiologists and biotechnologists as it is to conservationists.
  • (11) In 1997, the Miami Fusion entered the league and ominously played in the old home of the Ft. Lauderdale Strikers (a converted high school stadium).
  • (12) Starting small, with oddly tweaked vocal samples and ominous-sounding piano, the first half is brilliantly brooding, to the point where the first chorus of “I love these streets but they weren’t meant for me to walk” arrives at the 45-second mark just as all the music drops away completely.
  • (13) It’s a seismic moment for the industry and particularly the big European manufacturers who have done a lot of work on diesel: technologically, they have they made the wrong bet.” Some analysts believe fears of brand damage in Europe are overstated but Bailey says: “In the US it’s very different: VW have killed their diesel market and it has left them in a very difficult position.” For British manufacturer Jaguar Land Rover, the timing of VW’s woes was ominous, as it unveiled two new diesels in America.
  • (14) The finding of involvement of para-aortic lymph nodes in patients with adenocarcinoma of the prostate has been considered so ominous that further therapy has often only been palliative.
  • (15) It is ominous because it suggests that the monitors will not be given free access as was hoped.
  • (16) Both clear-cut benign and transitional sebaceous neoplasms should also be recognized as having the potential to undergo an ominous clinical regrowth upon subtotal excision and a complete squamous transformation.
  • (17) She writes: It used to be that evil finance plots at least had the dignity to be conducted in back rooms, with much mustache-twirling and fondling of watch fobs as well as hearty, if ominous laughs.
  • (18) Even more ominous is the fragmentation of the global news agenda, and with it public opinion, into clear propaganda blocs.
  • (19) Having done battle with the Walkie-Scorchie "fryscraper" by Rafael Viñoly – who, somewhat ominously, is also responsible for the Battersea power station masterplan – at least London should be ready for whatever Gehry decides to throw at it.
  • (20) But I think the signs from here on are more ominous for Cameron.

Sinister


Definition:

  • (a.) On the left hand, or the side of the left hand; left; -- opposed to dexter, or right.
  • (a.) Unlucky; inauspicious; disastrous; injurious; evil; -- the left being usually regarded as the unlucky side; as, sinister influences.
  • (a.) Wrong, as springing from indirection or obliquity; perverse; dishonest; corrupt; as, sinister aims.
  • (a.) Indicative of lurking evil or harm; boding covert danger; as, a sinister countenance.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) The committee's findings include that the attacks were not extensively planned by the perpetrators; the intelligence community did a good job of warning about the risk of an attack but a bad job of summarizing the attack when it happened; the state department screwed up by not beefing up security at the mission; nobody blocked any military response; and that the Obama administration was slow to produce a paper trail but was generally not a sinister actor in the episode.
  • (2) He should not try to play political games with the darkest and most sinister chapter of Europe’s history.
  • (3) The American actor played sinister rookie methylamine chemist Todd Alquist in the final season of Breaking Bad.
  • (4) Camille O'Sullivan In 2007, the sinister, humorous gem Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea spread like wildfire just after its opening, and you had to kill to get a ticket.
  • (5) Wenger had complained of a sinister media plot to brainwash Arsenal's home fans, as though they were easily led and swing in the breeze, but it all was sweetness and light as Aaron Ramsey continued his early season swagger.
  • (6) The Chinese government is depicted as benevolent, while the US government manages to be both sinister and useless – typified by the black-clad CIA operatives, one of whom gets beaten up by a Chinese character.
  • (7) The results showed a very good distribution of 100% or 90% in the bronchi principals dexter and sinister.
  • (8) The Velvet Underground’s sinisterly thrilling, entirely unapologetic musical portraits of New York’s gay, drug-taking demimonde must have seemed overwhelming to a British suburban kid in the late 60s.
  • (9) The latest film sees Bond travel from Mexico to the Sahara desert, Italy and the Austrian Alps in pursuit of SPECTRE – an acronym for Special Executive for Counter-Intelligence, Terrorism, Revenge and Extortion – the sinister organisation intent on world domination.
  • (10) Sinister individuals in lab coats "advising" from behind the scenes?
  • (11) "But this can be taken out of my hands in a number of sinister ways."
  • (12) The police had handed control of the investigation to Paul Britton, a grandstanding and, in my view, faintly sinister, psychologist.
  • (13) The stories range from the subtly sinister to the outrageously gothic.
  • (14) Other more sinister forces have tried to tap into the widespread hostility towards the banking system.
  • (15) Rumours abound that Trump has had some link to Putin’s sinister finances.
  • (16) This is especially so where its occasional presentation as polypoid lesions of the lower respiratory tract may mimic other more sinister lesions and lead to unwarranted invasive procedures by the unsuspecting clinician.
  • (17) It would be possible to write off the Swartz prosecution (as some have done) as the action of a politically ambitious attorney general, but actually it fits a much more sinister pattern.
  • (18) In retrospect, the movement was not just horrific but often ludicrous in its paranoia: the most "sinister" aspect of one supposed conspiracy, notes the book Mao's Last Revolution , was that even some of its core members appeared unaware of its existence.
  • (19) I don’t know how well thought-through they have been with it.” “You have a medical issue at your home, you call police, you don’t expect it to to be recorded on video forever, and for somebody to come and request [it] and be used against you in some sinister way,” said Gibbons, about the recordings potentially being public record.
  • (20) EL: The first psychiatrist I saw subscribed very much to the same view as my friend and the GP – that my voice (and bear in mind, it's still only a single voice at this time) was a sinister harbinger of something much more serious.