/ˈɔːɡər/
[verb] To be a sign of what is likely to happen in the future; to predict or indicate a good or bad outcome. For example, early sales figures can augur well or badly for a new product.
Roman priests once decided when to go to war by watching which direction birds flew — and that is exactly where this word comes from.
The story of 'augur' begins in the religious life of ancient Rome, where a special class of priests known as *augures* held enormous political power. Their job was not to pray or perform sacrifices, but to observe signs in the natural world — particularly the behaviour of birds — and interpret what those signs meant for the future. Before any major public decision, from declaring war to electing a magistrate, the augures would watch the sky. The direction birds flew, the sounds they made, where they landed: all of these were messages from the gods, and the augures alone could read them.
The Latin word *augur* itself is ancient and somewhat mysterious. Most scholars connect it to the Latin root *avis*, meaning 'bird', and *garrire*, meaning 'to talk' or 'to chatter' — making an augur, at heart, someone who listens to what birds say. Others link it to the Proto-Indo-European root *h₂ewg-*, meaning 'to increase' or 'to speak with authority', which also gave Latin the word *augere*, meaning 'to grow or enlarge'. This same root *augere* flows into English through several paths: Latin *augere* → Old French *augmenter* → English 'augment', and Latin *augustus* (meaning 'great' or 'venerable', the title given to the Roman emperor) → English 'august', the adjective meaning 'respected and impressive'.
The related practice was called *auspicium* in Latin, from *avis* ('bird') and *specere* ('to look at'), meaning literally 'the observation of birds'. This gave English the word 'auspice' and the adjective 'auspicious', meaning favourable or promising — both of which preserve that ancient Roman habit of looking to the sky for guidance. When we say something is 'auspicious', we are, without knowing it, still scanning the heavens for birds.
The word 'augur' entered English in the late 14th and early 15th centuries, initially as a noun describing the Roman priest himself. Writers discussing classical history used it straightforwardly to name this specific religious office. Over time, however, the noun shifted into a verb — to augur — meaning to predict or foreshadow, and the original connection to birds and Roman ceremony quietly faded. By the 16th and 17th centuries, English speakers were using 'augur' freely in everyday contexts, speaking of events that 'augured well' or 'augured ill' for the future, with no thought of priests or feathers.
What makes 'augur' particularly fascinating is how completely the metaphor has been absorbed into ordinary language. Today, we use it in news reports, business writing, and casual speech as a clean, simple way of saying 'this is a sign of things to come'. The word has lost none of its power — if anything, it has gained flexibility. Yet buried inside every modern use is the image of a Roman priest standing in an open field at dawn, his eyes fixed on the horizon, waiting to see which way the birds would fly before the Senate made its next move.