Word Finder - threaten

definition

To make a threat against someone; to use threats.

example

He threatened me with a knife.

definition

To menace, or be dangerous.

example

The rocks threatened the ship's survival.

definition

To portend, or give a warning of.

example

The black clouds threatened heavy rain.

definition

To be close to equaling or surpassing (a record, etc.)

Did he threaten you?

Let the thunder rumble; what if it threaten ruin to farmers' crops?

Jonny didn't threaten you, did he?

It seemed to threaten the very foundations of religion itself.

Celestine did not dare so much as to threaten him with excommunication.

The demands of the state budget have become so monstrous that they threaten to devour the peasant with all his land and products.

Don't harass, stalk or threaten to harm your spouse.

The purpose was to decrease the floods which sometimes threaten to entirely submerge the city.

Cicero, therefore, was fully aware of the danger which would threaten himself from his execution of the Catilinarian conspirators.

The clergy at Waterford threaten to lay an interdict on every town that allows the Ormond Peace to be proclaimed.

Their seemingly irreconcilable dreams threaten to tear them apart... .

Mink attacks threaten water voles - Water voles in parts of East Yorkshire are being targeted by gangs of wild American mink attacks threaten water voles - Water voles in parts of East Yorkshire are being targeted by gangs of wild American mink.

A short while later he returned but only to threaten Roy with the police.

Changing climatic conditions threaten water, air, food, and other supplies that are essential for the preservation of all life on the planet.

The insurgents, however, continued to threaten the town, and their position was bombarded by the international fleet (21st February).

Archias lost his temper, and began to threaten.

But this stability of the Roman peace had barely been realized when events began to threaten it both from within and without.

A few weeks later a French force under Prince Napoleon landed in Tuscany to threaten Austria's flank, but in the meanwhile the emperor Napoleon made peace with Austria and agreed to the restoration of Leopold and other Italian princes.

Don't threaten me, Lori.

Cavendish rejected atomism in 1655 because it might level the hierarchical order in which she believed; it could also threaten political stability.

And whenever things threaten to disappear up their own fundament, director Michael Cabot skilfully nudges humor into the fore.

All my mother had to do to keep me in check was to threaten to ground me from going to the boxing gym.

Or any of the other busybodies which threaten the hegemony of a superpower.

These tend to merge into an enlarging, horseshoe-shaped bare slope which may threaten to reduce the dune to an eroded hummock.

The out-of-bounds grounds of the old icehouse threaten the stray drive over the Point Road.

We are convinced, however, that if it is immoral to use these weapons it is also immoral to threaten their use.

But technologies of connectivity can threaten stability and community.

Firstly, he doubted whether the allies were strong enough to attack the Quadrilateral, for he saw the defects of his own armys organization; secondly, he began to fear intervention by Prussia, whose attitude appeared menacing; thirdly, although really anxious to expel the Austrians from Italy, he did not wish to create a too powerful Italian state at the foot of the Alps, which, besides constituting a potential danger to France, might threaten the popes temporal power, and Napoleon believed that he could not stand without the clerical vote; fourthly, the war had been declared against the wishes of the great majority of Frenchmen and was even now far from popular.

People who have been victims of domestic abuse may fear that their partner may threaten their life after a divorce.

Chemicals released in this process are said to threaten reproductive systems as well as health in general.

Not only does this mean less water for drinking, but a lack of water will threaten food production.

I still threaten to buy some for my boyfriend.

Distant figures on the fringe of the galaxy, the remnants of the Emperor's machinations threaten them.

Force was met with force; the Circumcelliones, bands of fugitive slaves and vagrant (circum cellas) peasants, attached themselves to the Donatists, and their violence reached such a height as to threaten civil war.

For Spain its immediate effect was to threaten a great increase of the difficulties of the government, by the immigration of the whole mass of religious congregations expelled from Portugal by one of the first acts of the new rgime.

The place where the acropolis was entered was believed to have been overlooked by the mythical Meles when he carried the lion round his fortress to make it invulnerable; it was really a path opened by one of the landslips, which have reduced the sandstone cliff of the acropolis to a mere shell, and threaten to carry it altogether into the plain below.

The Council had only thought the Anshan rulers barbaric enough to threaten to blow up the only source of ore.

Violation of these rules could gravely harm the cooperation that GENUKI is obtaining from many information providers, and hence threaten its whole future.

Some non-profit charitable corporations threaten boycotts and then ask for and get grants from targeted companies.

Her employers allegedly threaten her with voodoo curses to keep her under control.

The extreme force needed to produce such a bending deformation would certainly threaten the integrity of the glass itself.

We do not agree that direct elections to the second chamber would threaten the primacy of the House of Commons.

But nothing is allowed to threaten the right of the beef producers to carry on producing.

Moscow worries that separatism inside Russia and radical Islamic movements beyond their borders might threaten stability in Southern Russia.

Predictably, Max gathered snow from mom's car to create a large snowball to take into the house to threaten his sister with.

She, along with her son, was escorted into Austria by Count von Neipperg, and refused to comply with the entreaties and commands of Napoleon to proceed to Elba; and her alienation from him was completed when he ventured to threaten her with a forcible abduction if she did not obey.

At present it serves no other purpose than to increase the floods which periodically turn Bagdad into an island city, and sometimes threaten to overwhelm the dikes which protect it and to submerge it entirely.

The persistent hostility of Venice is partially attributable to her constant fear lest Louis should inherit the crown of Naples and thus threaten her trade and her sea-power from two sides simultaneously.

Lutheranism began to run so strongly in Denmark as to threaten to whirl away every opposing obstacle.

But I cannot forget that in the sky of India, serene as it is, a small cloud may arise, no larger than a man's hand, but which, growing larger and larger, may at last threaten to burst and overwhelm us with ruin."