menace
/ˈmɛnɪs/
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 3.54 in modern English
10
Scrabble Score
6
Letters
2
Syllables
5
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
The act of threatening.
verb
To endanger (someone or something); to imperil or jeopardize.
Example Sentences
- "the dark menace of the distant war."
- "to menace a country with war"
- "My master […] did menace me with death."
- "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!"
- "Bradley Barcola, on for Kvaratskhelia, menaced with his jet-heeled pace on the counter."
- "Upon his browes was pourtraid vgly death, And in his eies the furies of his heart, That ſhine as Comets, menacing reueng, And caſts a pale complexion on his cheeks."
Etymology
From Middle English manace, from Old French manace, menace, &c., from Late Latin minācia (“threat, menace”), from Latin mināx (“threatening”) + -ia (suffix forming abstract nouns).