Wiktionary

menace

See also: menacé

EnglishEdit

PronunciationEdit

  • IPA(key): /ˈmɛnɪs/
  • Rhymes: -ɛnɪs
  • Audio (UK)(file)

Etymology 1Edit

From Middle English manace, from Old French manace, menace, &c., from Late Latin minācia (“threat, menace”), from Latin mināx (“threatening”) + -ia (“forming abstract nouns”).

NounEdit

menace (plural menaces)

  1. A perceived threat or danger. [a. 1300]
  2. The act of threatening.
  3. (informal) An annoying and bothersome person or thing.
SynonymsEdit
  • (the act or process of threatening, a tendancy to threaten): minacity, minacy
TranslationsEdit

ReferencesEdit

Etymology 2Edit

First attested in 1303: from Middle English manacen, from Old French menacer, manecier, manechier and Anglo-Norman manasser, from the assumed Vulgar Latin *mināciāre, from Latin minācia, whence the noun.

VerbEdit

menace (third-person singular simple present menaces, present participle menacing, simple past and past participle menaced) (transitive, intransitive)

  1. (transitive) To make threats against (someone); to intimidate.
    to menace a country with war
    • c. 1591–1595 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Romeo and Ivliet”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, OCLC 606515358, [Act V, scene iii]:
      My master […] did menace me with death.
    • 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!
  2. To threaten (an evil to be inflicted).
  3. To endanger (someone or something); to imperil or jeopardize.
TranslationsEdit

ReferencesEdit

  • “menace, v.” listed in the Oxford English Dictionary [2nd Ed.; 1989]

FrenchEdit

EtymologyEdit

From Old French manace, from Latin minācia (“threat”), a noun based on mināx (“threatening”).

PronunciationEdit

NounEdit

menace f (plural menaces)

  1. threat

Related termsEdit

VerbEdit

menace

  1. inflection of menacer:
    1. first/third-person singular present indicative/subjunctive
    2. second-person singular imperative

Further readingEdit

FriulianEdit

EtymologyEdit

From Latin minācia (“threat”), possibly via Italian minaccia or another Romance language.

NounEdit

menace f (plural menacis)

  1. threat, menace

Related termsEdit

Middle EnglishEdit

VerbEdit

menace

  1. Alternative form of manacen

SpanishEdit

VerbEdit

menace

  1. inflection of menazar:
    1. first/third-person singular present subjunctive
    2. third-person singular imperative
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