menace
Contents
English[edit]
Pronunciation[edit]
Etymology 1[edit]
First attested ante 1300: borrowed from the Old French manace, menace, from the Vulgar Latin *minācia, from mināx, mināciae (“threatening; threats”), from minor (“I threaten”).
Noun[edit]
menace (plural menaces)
- A perceived threat or danger.
- Dryden
- the dark menace of the distant war.
- Dryden
- The act of threatening.
- (informal) An annoying and bothersome person or thing.
Translations[edit]
References[edit]
- “menace, n.” listed in the Oxford English Dictionary [2nd Ed.; 1989]
Etymology 2[edit]
First attested in 1303: from Old French menacer, manecier, manechier and Anglo-Norman manasser, from the assumed Vulgar Latin *mināciāre, from Latin minācia, whence the noun.
Verb[edit]
menace (third-person singular simple present menaces, present participle menacing, simple past and past participle menaced) (transitive, intransitive)
- (transitive) To make threats against (someone); to intimidate.
- to menace a country with war
- Shakespeare
- My master […] did menace me with death.
- To threaten (an evil to be inflicted).
- Shakespeare
- By oath he menaced / Revenge upon the cardinal.
- 1788 June, Richard Brinsley Sheridan, “Mr. Sheridan’s Speech, on Summing Up the Evidence on the Second, or Begum Charge against Warren Hastings, Esq., Delivered before the High Court of Parliament, June 1788”, in Select Speeches, Forensick and Parliamentary, with Prefatory Remarks by N[athaniel] Chapman, M.D., volume I, [Philadelphia, Pa.]: Published by Hopkins and Earle, no. 170, Market Street, published 1808, OCLC 230944105, page 474:
- The Begums' ministers, on the contrary, to extort from them the disclosure of the place which concealed the treasures, were, […] after being fettered and imprisoned, led out on to a scaffold, and this array of terrours proving unavailing, the meek tempered Middleton, as a dernier resort, menaced them with a confinement in the fortress of Chunargar. Thus, my lords, was a British garrison made the climax of cruelties!
- Shakespeare
- To endanger (someone or something); to imperil or jeopardize.
Translations[edit]
References[edit]
- “menace, v.” listed in the Oxford English Dictionary [2nd Ed.; 1989]
French[edit]
Etymology[edit]
From Old French manace, from Vulgar Latin *minācia (“threat”), from Latin mināx (“threatening”), mināciae (“threats”).
Pronunciation[edit]
Noun[edit]
menace f (plural menaces)
Related terms[edit]
Verb[edit]
menace
- first-person singular present indicative of menacer
- third-person singular present indicative of menacer
- first-person singular present subjunctive of menacer
- third-person singular present subjunctive of menacer
- second-person singular imperative of menacer
Further reading[edit]
- “menace” in le Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).
Friulian[edit]
Etymology[edit]
From Vulgar Latin *minācia, from the plural of Latin mināx (“threatening”); cf. mināciae (“threats”).
Noun[edit]
menace f (plural menacis)
Related terms[edit]
- English 2-syllable words
- English terms with IPA pronunciation
- English terms borrowed from Old French
- English terms derived from Old French
- English terms derived from Vulgar Latin
- English lemmas
- English nouns
- English countable nouns
- English informal terms
- English terms derived from Anglo-Norman
- English terms derived from Latin
- English verbs
- English transitive verbs
- English intransitive verbs
- English terms with usage examples
- English terms with quotations
- French terms inherited from Old French
- French terms derived from Old French
- French terms inherited from Vulgar Latin
- French terms derived from Vulgar Latin
- French terms inherited from Latin
- French terms derived from Latin
- French 2-syllable words
- French terms with IPA pronunciation
- French terms with audio links
- French lemmas
- French nouns
- French feminine nouns
- French countable nouns
- French non-lemma forms
- French verb forms
- Friulian terms inherited from Vulgar Latin
- Friulian terms derived from Vulgar Latin
- Friulian terms inherited from Latin
- Friulian terms derived from Latin
- Friulian lemmas
- Friulian nouns