threatening meaning: definition, etymology and quotations

threatening

adj

/ˈθɹɛtə.nɪŋ/ · /ˈθɹɛt.nɪŋ/

Etymology From Middle English thretenyng, þreteninde, equivalent to threaten + -ing.

Presenting a threat, posing a likely risk of harm.

Never turn your back to someone who is displaying threatening behavior.
Fie, fie, vnknit that thretaning vnkinde brovv, / And dart not ſcornefull glances from thoſe eies, / To vvound thy Lord, thy King, thy Gouernour.c. 1590–1592 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Taming of the Shrew”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act V, scene ii], page 229, column 1:

Making threats, making statements about a willingness to cause harm.

Synonyms: minacious, menacing, baleful, threatensome, threatful, ominous
Derived terms: life-threatening, nonthreatening, non-threatening, threateningly, threateningness, unthreatening
Hypernyms: frightening

noun

Etymology From Middle English thretenyng, thretnynge, þretnynge, equivalent to threaten + -ing.

An act of threatening; a threat.

And nowe lorde beholde their threatenyngꝭ / and graunte vnto thy ſervauntꝭ wyth all confydence to ſpeake thy worde.1526, [William Tyndale, transl.], The Newe Testamẽt […] (Tyndale Bible), [Worms, Germany: Peter Schöffer], →OCLC, Acts iiij:[29], folio clix, recto:
In Mr. J. C. Hotten’s Life, and in Mr. A. W. Ward’s admirable monograph in the “English Men of Letters” Series, a paper of mine called “Pincher Astray” is attributed to Dickens.Edmund Yates (1884), “A Dickens Chapter”, in Edmund Yates: His Recollections and Experiences, volume II, London: Richard Bentley and Son, page 111: