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auspice

/ˈɔspɪs/noun, verb

auspice is a noun meaning “Patronage or protection” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). It is spelled A-U-S-P-I-C-E and has 2 syllables, and it appears about once in every 43 million words in written English (wordfreq, 2021 data). The plural of auspice is auspices.

What does auspice mean?

noun

  1. 1

    Patronage or protection.

    This building was built under the auspices of the Friends of the Poor.

  2. 2

    An omen or a sign.

    The circle of vultures was not a good auspice.

  3. 3

    obsoleteDivination from the actions of birds.

verb

  1. 1

    To be patron of; to sponsor.

    The music festival was auspiced by a popular radio station.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

How do you pronounce auspice?

  • UK /ˈɔːspɪs/
  • US /ˈɔspɪs/
  • /ˈɑspɪs/

Auspice has 2 syllables (counted from its American pronunciation in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary).

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: En-us-auspice.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).

Forms of auspice

  • auspices plural, present, singular, he/she/it
  • auspicing participle, present
  • auspiced participle, past

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

How common is auspice?

Auspice appears about once in every 43 million words in written English, the 201,693rd most frequent word form in the list.

Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).

Auspice in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese

LanguageWords
Frenchauspices (patronage), auspice (omen)

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.

Where does auspice come from?

From Middle French auspice, from Latin auspicium, in turn from auspex.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).