threat
/θɹɛt/
Word Rarity
Uncommon
Frequency: Zipf frequency 4.60 in modern English
9
Scrabble Score
6
Letters
1
Syllables
5
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
An expression of intent to injure or punish another.
noun
An indication of potential or imminent danger.
name
A surname.
Example Sentences
- "There is no terror, Cassius, in your threats."
- "At the height of the crisis, according to a retired SAC wing commander, SAC airborne alert bombers deliberately flew past their turnaround points toward Soviet airspace, an unambiguous threat which Soviet radar operators would certainly have recognized and reported. "I knew what my target was," the SAC general adds: "Leningrad." The bombers only turned around when the Soviet freighters carrying missiles to Cuba stopped dead in the Atlantic."
- "Verifying and addressing actual threats is not paranoia."
- "Many genes with reproductive roles also have antibacterial and immune functions, which indicate that the threat of microbial attack on the sperm or egg may be a major influence on rapid evolution during reproduction."
- "Taiwan is monitoring what it called "abnormal" changes to China's military leadership after its most senior general was put under investigation, and will not lower its guard as the threat level remains high, the defence minister said on Monday."
- "Rooney's United team-mate Chris Smalling was given his debut at right-back and was able to adjust to the international stage in relatively relaxed fashion as Bulgaria barely posed a threat of any consequence."
Etymology
From Middle English threte, thret, thrat, thræt, threat, from Old English þrēat (“crowd, swarm, troop, army, press; pressure, trouble, calamity, oppression, force, violence, threat”), from Proto-Germanic *þrautaz, closely tied to Proto-Germanic *þrautą (“displeasure, complaint, grievance, labour, toil”), from Proto-Indo-European *trewd- (“to squeeze, push, press”). Cognate with Scots thret, threte, threit (“threat”), Middle High German drōz (“annoyance, disgust, horror, terror, fright”), Middle Low German drōt (“threat, menace, danger”), Faroese treyt (“struggle, labour, distress”), Icelandic þraut (“struggle, labour, distress”), Belarusian, Bulgarian, Macedonian, Russian, and Ukrainian труд (trud, “work, labour”), Czech trud (“effot, hard work”), Polish trud (“hard work”), Serbo-Croatian trȗd (“effort, hard work”).
Origin
Word Breakdown
- Root: threte, þrēat, *þrautaz, *trewd-, threten, þrēatian
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /θɹɛt/
- British English: /θɹɛt/