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THREATENING
| Pronunciation (US): |  | (GB): | |
I. (adjective)
Sense 1
Meaning:
Threatening or foreshadowing evil or tragic developments
Example:
the situation became ugly
Synonyms:
baleful; forbidding; menacing; minacious; minatory; ominous; sinister; threatening
Classified under:
Similar:
alarming (frightening because of an awareness of danger)
Sense 2
Meaning:
Darkened by clouds
Example:
a heavy sky
Synonyms:
heavy; lowering; sullen; threatening
Classified under:
Similar:
cloudy (full of or covered with clouds)
II. (verb)
Sense 1
-ing form of the verb threaten
Context examples:
A life threatening condition due to inadequate levels of glucocorticoids in an individual with adrenal insufficiency.
(Adrenal Crisis, NCI Thesaurus)
If it grows large enough, it can press against the brain, becoming life-threatening.
(Acoustic Neuroma, NIH: National Institute of Deafness and Communication Disorders)
There was nothing threatening about her.
(White Fang, by Jack London)
The loss of beneficial bacteria increases the risk of certain life-threatening infectious diseases and graft-versus-host disease (GVHD).
(Fecal microbiota transplantation helps restore beneficial bacteria in cancer patients, National Institutes of Health)
You are in the wrong, replied the fiend; and instead of threatening, I am content to reason with you.
(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)
It is clear now that some danger is threatening your lodger.
(His Last Bow, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
South or north, I know a black cloud when I see it; and you must not set forward while it is so threatening.
(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)
I'm all for argyment; I never seen good come out o' threatening.
(Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson)
They were coming through the brushwood and threatening to cut us off.
(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
Allergies can be life-threatening when they cause anaphylaxis, an extreme reaction with constriction of the airways and a sudden drop in blood pressure.
(Scientists discover immune cell subtype in mice that drives allergic reactions, National Institutes of Health)
