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/θrˈɛtən/ Listen

verb

Threaten v. t. (past & past part. threatened; pres. part. threatening)

To utter threats against; to menace; to inspire with apprehension; to alarm, or attempt to alarm, as with the promise of something evil or disagreeable; to warn. "Let us straitly threaten them, that they speak henceforth to no man in this name."

To exhibit the appearance of (something evil or unpleasant) as approaching; to indicate as impending; to announce the conditional infliction of; as, to threaten war; to threaten death. "The skies look grimly And threaten present blusters."

Synonyms: To menace. Threaten, Menace. Threaten is Anglo-Saxon, and menace is Latin. As often happens, the former is the more familiar term; the latter is more employed in formal style. We are threatened with a drought; the country is menaced with war. "By turns put on the suppliant and the lord: Threatened this moment, and the next implored." "Of the sharp ax Regardless, that o'er his devoted head Hangs menacing."

Threaten v. i. To use threats, or menaces; also, to have a threatening appearance. "Though the seas threaten, they are merciful."

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Etymology of 'Threaten'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Threaten" Quotes from Famous Books

... joining in their exercises and games, as if they had not been his keepers, but his guards. He wrote verses and speeches, and made them his auditors, and those who did not admire them, he called to their faces illiterate and barbarous, and would often, in raillery, threaten to hang them. They were greatly taken with this, and attributed his free talking to a kind of simplicity and boyish playfulness. As soon as his ransom was come from Miletus, he paid it, and was discharged, and proceeded at once to man ...

— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough

... to sanity; but on the other hand if there is {302} anything which human history demonstrates, it is the extreme slowness with which the ordinary academic and critical mind acknowledges facts to exist which present themselves as wild facts, with no stall or pigeon-hole, or as facts which threaten to break up the accepted system. In psychology, physiology, and medicine, wherever a debate between the mystics and the scientifics has been once for all decided, it is the mystics who have usually proved to be right about the facts, while the ...

— The Will to Believe - and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy • William James

... clams and, after stuffing them with peanuts, fry them over a slow fire. Now remove the necks from the clams and add baking soda. Let them sizzle. Take the juice of a lemon and threaten the clams with it. Serve hot with pink finger-bowls with your initials on them. Some people prefer to have their initials on the clams, but such an idea is only for ...

— Skiddoo! • Hugh McHugh

... use to me; but perhaps he serves us best at a distance. All I ask is that he shall not risk himself too near Father Ignazio's talons, for he would be a pretty morsel to throw to the Holy Office, and the weak point of such a man's position is that, however dangerous in life, he can threaten no one from ...

— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton

... "Threaten them with the pistols if they don't get out of the way," the sergeant proposed. "They are jamming us ...

— A Lieutenant at Eighteen • Oliver Optic

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