favorable

favorable, benign, auspicious, propitious mean being of good omen or presaging a happy or successful outcome.

Favorable implies that the persons or circumstances involved tend to assist in attaining one's ends—persons by being kindly disposed or actually helpful and circumstances by being distinctly advantageous or encouraging

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lend a favorable ear to a request

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it was feared that many of the small countries were favorable to the enemy

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a favorable breeze

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a hot dry summer, favorable to contemplative life out of doors— Conrad

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they won't take a chance of battle unless they can feel sure of most favorable conditions— Alexander Forbes

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Benign (see also KIND) is applicable chiefly to someone or to something that has power to make or mar one's fortunes by his or its aspect and is thought of as looking down with favor on one or of presenting a favorable countenance to one

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so shall the World go on, to good malignant, to bad men benign— Milton

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on whose birth benign planets have certainly smiled— Brontë

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a benign rather than a malevolent phenomenon— Margaret Halsey

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Auspicious, like the related augur (see under FORETELL), suggests the presence of signs or omens and is applicable to something that is marked by favorable signs or is in itself regarded as a good omen

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an auspicious beginning of what proved to be a great career

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for sure the milder planets did combine on thy auspicious horoscope to shine— Dryden

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pay the boy ... he brought auspicious news— Kipling

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Propitious suggests an allusion to favoring gods or powers more strongly than favorable but not quite so explicitly as auspicious; it may therefore be preferred to favorable when such a connotation is desired

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if the fates are propitious, there is no doubt of his success

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they looked upon the present moment as propitious for starting their project

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after so propitious an opening it seemed that acerbities might be quelled, rivalries mitigated— S. H. Adams

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Analogous words: advantageous, *beneficial, profitable: salutary, wholesome, *healthful: benignant, kindly, *kind

Antonyms: unfavorable: antagonistic