Aura in slang means an impressive presence: a personality and style that others admire and find fascinating. People use it to praise friends, colleagues and celebrities in chats and on social media, often half-jokingly. In an essay or IELTS Speaking, slang aura won't work; say presence or charisma instead: She has real presence.
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have (so much / zero) aura; pure aura; lose aura
- She walked on stage like it was nothing, zero nerves, so much aura.
- He fixed the printer in two seconds and walked off without a word, pure aura.
- I tripped over my own bag in front of the whole office, definitely lost some aura.
What changed
First versionI don't trust our new neighbour, I get a bad aura from him.
RevisionI don't trust our new neighbour, I get a bad vibe from him.
Bad aura can seem natural if you think of aura as a kind of energy around a person, good or bad. But slang aura is only ever something people admire. If someone gives you an uneasy feeling, the phrase is get a bad vibe from someone.
In neutral English, aura is countable and usually followed by of: an aura of calm, an aura of mystery. You can write it that way even in an essay: The old library has an aura of calm. Slang aura has no article: He has so much aura.
Your turn
Everyone panicked when the fire alarm went off, but he calmly led us all outside. That guy has ___.
Show the answer
so much aura — Staying calm while everyone around panics earns admiration, and that's aura. Rizz is charm in flirting, and nobody is flirting here.
Describe someone you think has aura. Say who it is and what they did that showed it.
Our team lead has so much aura: when the client started shouting, she just smiled and calmly fixed the problem.
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