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Threaten   Listen
verb
Threaten  v. t.  (past & past part. threatened; pres. part. threatening)  
1.
To utter threats against; to menace; to inspire with apprehension; to alarm, or attempt to alarm, as with the promise of something evil or disagreeable; to warn. "Let us straitly threaten them, that they speak henceforth to no man in this name."
2.
To exhibit the appearance of (something evil or unpleasant) as approaching; to indicate as impending; to announce the conditional infliction of; as, to threaten war; to threaten death. "The skies look grimly And threaten present blusters."
Synonyms: To menace. Threaten, Menace. Threaten is Anglo-Saxon, and menace is Latin. As often happens, the former is the more familiar term; the latter is more employed in formal style. We are threatened with a drought; the country is menaced with war. "By turns put on the suppliant and the lord: Threatened this moment, and the next implored." "Of the sharp ax Regardless, that o'er his devoted head Hangs menacing."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Threaten" Quotes from Famous Books



... fight is of two kinds. First, there is the general combat, for instance, of those who fight in battle; secondly, there is the private combat, as when a judge or even private individual does not refrain from giving a just judgment through fear of the impending sword, or any other danger though it threaten death. Hence it belongs to fortitude to strengthen the mind against dangers of death, not only such as arise in a general battle, but also such as occur in singular combat, which may be called by the general name of ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas

... injuriously by getting a good supply of winter water into the soil. There might be some danger with trees which bloom late in the spring, like citrus trees or olives, because by that time the ground has become warm and the roots very active. At the blooming time of deciduous trees less danger would threaten, because there is less difference between the temperature of the ground and the water which you were then applying from a running stream. If you irrigated in furrows and, therefore, did not collect the water in mass, its temperature would rise by contact ...
— One Thousand Questions in California Agriculture Answered • E.J. Wickson

... we advance. We can bring Kimberley no relief unless we can open and guard the railway, and so enable supplies to be poured into the town. Second, we are not strong enough, and above all not mobile enough, while holding the railway to attempt a wide flanking movement which might threaten the Boer retreat, or enable us to shell and attack from two sides at once. If we had anything like a decent force of mounted men I suppose we could do it, but with our handful to separate it from the main body would be to get ...
— With Rimington • L. March Phillipps

... committed last night, and the insolent notice nailed on the courthouse door, could have come only from their brain. They are the hereditary leaders of these people. They alone would have the audacity to fling this crime into the teeth of the world and threaten worse. We are face to face with Southern barbarism. Every man now to his own standard! The house of Stoneman can have ...
— The Clansman - An Historical Romance of the Ku Klux Klan • Thomas Dixon

... passes Beppo's castle is prayed in courtesy to leave a remembrance, and receives the blandest bow and thanks in return. Shall we, then, say, the former are nobles and gentlemen,—the other is a miserable beggar? Is it worse to ask than to seize? Is it meaner to thank than to threaten? If he who is supported by the public is a beggar, our kings are beggars, our pensions are charity. Did not the Princess Royal hold out her hand, the other day, to the House of Commons? and does any one think the worse of her for it? We are all, in measure, beggars; but Beppo, in ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various

... those days called the hither Gaul, and was a Roman province. It belonged now to Csar's jurisdiction, as the commander in Gaul. All south of the Rubicon was territory reserved for the immediate jurisdiction of the city. The Romans, in order to protect themselves from any danger which might threaten their own liberties from the immense armies which they raised for the conquest of foreign nations, had imposed on every side very strict limitations and restrictions in respect to the approach of these armies to the capital. The Rubicon was the limit on this northern side. Generals ...
— The Junior Classics • Various

... villagers crowded round the cottage fire, afraid to open the door. But the priest said that if they did not open the door he would put his shoulder to it and force it open. Bryden went towards the door, saying he would allow no one to threaten him, priest or no priest, but Margaret caught his arm and told him that if he said anything to the priest, the priest would speak against them from the altar, and they would be shunned by the neighbours. It was Mike Scully who went to the door and ...
— The Untilled Field • George Moore

... been charming ourselves with the magic of words. When menaced by some exceptionally monstrous form of the tyranny of numbers we have closed our eyes and murmured, "Liberty." When armed Anarchists threaten to quench the fires of civilization in a sea of blood we prate of the protective power ...
— The Shadow On The Dial, and Other Essays - 1909 • Ambrose Bierce

... court, because, the service once lawfully effected, the court is indifferent to the treatment of its stationery; but such behaviour, though lawful, is childish. To obstruct a witness on his way to give evidence, or to threaten him if he does give evidence, or to tamper with the jury, are all serious contempts. In short, there is a divinity which hedges a court of justice, and anybody who, by action or inaction, renders the course of justice more difficult ...
— In the Name of the Bodleian and Other Essays • Augustine Birrell

... without remonstrance, had surrendered their castles into the hands of the usurper; and the peasantry, following the example of their lords, had allowed their homes to be ravaged without lifting an arm in their defense. Opposition being over, nothing could then threaten her husband from the enemy; and was not the person who had taken him from ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter

... I have striven, striven to evade? Gazing on him, must I not deem they err Whose careless lips in street and shop aver As common tidings, deeds to make his cheek Flush from the bronze, and his dead throat to speak? Surely some elder singer would arise, Whose harp hath leave to threaten and to mourn Above this people when they go astray. Is Whitman, the strong spirit, overworn? Has Whittier put his yearning wrath away? I will not and I dare not yet believe! Though furtively the sunlight seems to grieve, And the spring-laden breeze ...
— The Little Book of Modern Verse • Jessie B. Rittenhouse

... serious dangers threaten the quality of our education: First, loose and shallow knowledge; second, overloading with encyclopedic knowledge. What can concentration do to remedy the one and check the other? The cure for these two evils will be found in so adjusting the studies to each other, in so building them into each ...
— The Elements of General Method - Based on the Principles of Herbart • Charles A. McMurry

... very possible through the freedom of the pupil, through special circumstances, or through the errors of the educator himself. And for this very reason any theory of Education must take into account in the beginning this negative possibility. It must consider beforehand the dangers which threaten the pupil in all possible ways even before they surround him, and fortify him against them. Intentionally to expose him to temptation in order to prove his strength, is devilish; and, on the other hand, to guard ...
— Pedagogics as a System • Karl Rosenkranz

... swifter flood, At the touch of a courage that conquers fear,— A name like the sound of a trumpet, clear, And silver-sweet, and iron-strong, That calls three million men to their feet, Ready to march, and steady to meet The foes who threaten that name with wrong,— A name that rings like a ...
— The Poems of Henry Van Dyke • Henry Van Dyke

... any attention to us, I propose, with Tim Kelly and the ten English sailors, to seize it. We can close the gate, and discharge the guns upon the defenders of the sea face. We could not, of course, defend it for five minutes if they attacked us; but we would threaten to blow up the ...
— With Clive in India - Or, The Beginnings of an Empire • G. A. Henty

... betokens the coming of a puff. Hull determined to utilize it for himself, and, if possible, trick the British so that they would lose all benefit of the breeze. The clouds that were coming up to windward seemed to threaten a squall, and driving sheets of rain were rapidly advancing toward the ship. With great ostentation, the "Constitution" was made ready for a severe gale. The enemy could see the nimble sailors taking in ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 1 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot

... are other and safer ways of combating the taste for flat prose. One might be to print parallel columns of "newspaper English" (which they threaten now to teach in the schools) until the eye sickened of its deadly monotony. This is a bad way. The average reader would not see the point. Paragraphs from a dozen American papers, all couched in the same utilitarian dialect,— simple but not always clear, ...
— Definitions • Henry Seidel Canby

... Clemens. For months—I may even say years—she has shown an unaccountable animosity toward my necktie, even getting up in the night to take it with the tongs and blackguard it, sometimes also getting so far as to threaten it. ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine

... of Borrowdale, Joined in one solemn and capacious grove; 15 Huge trunks! and each particular trunk a growth Of intertwisted fibres serpentine Up-coiling, and inveterately convolved; Nor uninformed with Phantasy, and looks That threaten the profane;—a pillared shade, 20 Upon whose grassless floor of red-brown hue, By sheddings from the pining umbrage tinged Perennially—beneath whose sable roof Of boughs, as if for festal purpose, decked With unrejoicing berries—ghostly ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. II. • William Wordsworth

... slipping to the floor and tenderly pushing him, "go! safest for everybody! And if you see a burglar don' threaten him!" ...
— The Flower of the Chapdelaines • George W. Cable

... are nobler, purer, better than I; you are made of finer fibre and you will lift me up when I threaten to perish ...
— Married • August Strindberg

... money and began to threaten. Tristram hit one violently in the eye, and catching the other by the throat pounded his head against the wall of the dungeon. He was surprised at the strength left in him, and also at a fury which he had never felt before in his life. A few of the ...
— The Blue Pavilions • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... present and future affairs, the chief remedy is to invoke God, endeavoring to placate Him by sacrifice and prayer, and beseeching Him to protect us by His powerful right hand. This duty devolves by special right upon the religious. Our duty is to threaten and strive to correct ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume VIII (of 55), 1591-1593 • Emma Helen Blair

... the Covenant, by Article 11, either the Council or the Assembly might consider any circumstance tending to threaten or disturb international peace. The language in this regard is general. It means no more than discussion and {65} suggestion, except perhaps publicity; but under this language of Article 11, the parties were left with their liberty of action in the matter; and indeed, under ...
— The Geneva Protocol • David Hunter Miller

... society; in the course of its development these antagonisms lead to rank and class contrasts, and these, in turn, grow into enmities between the several groups of interests, and finally into rank and class struggles, that threaten the existence of the new social order. In order to keep down these rank and class struggles, and to protect the property-holders, an organization is requisite that parries the assaults on property, and that pronounces "legal and sacred" the property obtained under certain ...
— Woman under socialism • August Bebel

... first time of a possible contingency. Why had she not thought of it before? Why had he never thought of it? If it should come to pass! The prospect did not appal her; it did not overwhelm her with confusion or oppress her with shame; it did not threaten to fall like a thunderbolt; the thought of it came down like ...
— The Manxman - A Novel - 1895 • Hall Caine

... speaking a word. He had gone to his room at the same moment in which the young lady descended to the garden. During the interview, at which she was not present, Librada had remained on guard in the hall to warn Pinzon, if any danger should threaten; and at the end of an hour the latter had left the house enveloped in his cloak, as before, and without speaking a word. When the confession was ended Don Inocencio said to ...
— Dona Perfecta • B. Perez Galdos

... wives whom I have taken already. To this, each thinking that it may be her turn speedily, if not now, they will in no wise consent, and have maltreated me as thou seest, and the dens of wild beasts are at this moment abodes of peace, compared to my seraglio. What is even worse, they threaten to disclose to the people the fact, of which they have unhappily become aware, that the revelation of the blessed Ad is not written upon the bones of a camel at all, but of a cow, and will therefore be accounted spurious, inasmuch as the prophet ...
— The Twilight of the Gods, and Other Tales • Richard Garnett

... bone, softe as the Silke, and breathed like the Rose, and all at their becke. Vesselles of siluer and golde. Angelles for their Butlers that shall bryng theim Milke in Goblettes of golde, and redde wine in siluer. But contrariewise, thei threaten vnto the breakers of them, helle, and euerlastyng destruccion. This thei also beleue, that be a manne wrapped in neuer so many synnes, yet if at his death, he beleue vpon God, and Machomete, ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries - Vol. II • Richard Hakluyt

... for danger that may threaten the others who are inside and working at your mother's safe. If he sees anything wrong he will give a signal, probably by means of a whistle, and the fellows ...
— The Launch Boys' Adventures in Northern Waters • Edward S. Ellis

... foresaw the return of the Bourbons, had come to Paris with my mother to advise my brother, who was employed in the imperial diplomatic service. My mother was to take me back with her, out of the way of dangers which seemed, to those who followed the march of events intelligently, to threaten the capital. In a few minutes, as it were, I was taken out of Paris, at the very moment when my life there was about to become ...
— The Lily of the Valley • Honore de Balzac

... engaged in these pursuits, the great storm which had long been brooding over Europe burst with such fury as for a moment seemed to threaten ruin to all free governments and all Protestant churches. France and England, without seeking for any decent pretext, declared war against Holland. The immense armies of Lewis poured across the Rhine, and invaded the territory of ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... esteemed above every other minister of his confession; she was gladly ready to disclose to him all that lay on her soul in the face of death. He looked into the pure, calm face; and though, at her first declaration, he had felt prompted to threaten her with the hideous end which he had but just done his utmost to avert, he now remembered the Greek widow's request and bound himself to ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... Hardcastle shook his head and said: "Nay, lad, nay, the tale would get about, and shame would presently be on the wing towards me. We must stand within the hazel-garth against each other." Then he spake again, and a somewhat grim smile was on his face: "Awhile agone thou didst threaten to slay me with the help of yonder squinting loon, but now thou standest unarmed before me and I have thy sword under my hand. Hast thou no fear of what I may do to thee, since so it is that forebodings ...
— The Sundering Flood • William Morris

... room, and the feverish state she tossed herself into when she was kept awake after her regular hour for sleep. Sometimes she sat up in bed suddenly, and cried aloud. Then Jane Nettles would push her down again on her pillow roughly, and threaten to call mamma if she wasn't good directly. Occasionally mamma heard her, and came up of her own accord, and shook her by the shoulder, and scolded her. Then Beth would lie still sobbing silently, and wretched as ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand

... more I get into my drama the more magnificent upon my word I seem to see it and feel it; with such a tremendous lot of possibilities in it that I positively quake in dread of the muchness with which they threaten me. ...
— Old and New Masters • Robert Lynd

... from the Colonies. Like many other critics of Empire, her mouth had been stopped with food, and she could only exclaim at the hospitality with which she had been received, and warn the Mother Country against trifling with young Titans. "They threaten to cut the painter," she cried, "and where shall we be then? Miss Schlegel, you'll undertake to keep Henry sound about Tariff Reform? It ...
— Howards End • E. M. Forster

... moment, while fighting for liberty, the Union and the emancipation of slaves! He told them that they thought it was a crime for the North to have a war for emancipation, but quite proper for England to threaten a war over two men named Mason and Slidell! Beecher understood Old England. No nation in history ever conducted so many wars. No other nation's statesmen ever had such skill to invent moral excuses for seizing territory, in Africa, Egypt, India, Thibet, Australia, New Zealand and all the ...
— The Battle of Principles - A Study of the Heroism and Eloquence of the Anti-Slavery Conflict • Newell Dwight Hillis

... of Manatos! Think you with impunity to threaten your jeddak—to question his right to punish traitors and instigators of treason? What am I to think of your own loyalty, who takes to wife a woman I have banished from my court because of her intrigues against ...
— The Chessmen of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... the plain, Bright arm'd, high crested, and athirst for war. As goat-herds separate their numerous flocks 570 With ease, though fed promiscuous, with like ease Their leaders them on every side reduced To martial order glorious;[19] among whom Stood Agamemnon "with an eye like Jove's, To threaten or command," like Mars in girth, 575 And with the port of Neptune. As the bull Conspicuous among all the herd appears, For he surpasses all, such Jove ordain'd That day the son of Atreus, in the midst Of Heroes, eminent above them all. 580 Tell me, (for ye are are heavenly, ...
— The Iliad of Homer - Translated into English Blank Verse • Homer

... "You threaten Justice. Your attitude is deplorable. You are consigned au secret, and will have an opportunity of revising your situation, and replying more fully to the inquiries ...
— The Mark Of Cain • Andrew Lang

... the further salon, where play was going on; and there seemed to be no one else in sight. And, as he stood there, free, in full pride and vigour of youth and strength, he became incredulous that anything could threaten him which he ...
— The Dark Star • Robert W. Chambers

... growing queer, Nay, threaten to be furious; I'll scan their paltry bills next year, At present I'm not curious. Such fellows are a monstrous bore, So I and Harry Grosvenor To-morrow start for Gallia's shore, And leave ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari. Vol. 1, July 31, 1841 • Various

... thinking that he has taken cover from the danger which he believes particularly to threaten him to-night?" ...
— Bat Wing • Sax Rohmer

... chance for persecution to succeed is to smite hard and swiftly. If you cannot strike, do not threaten. Menacing words only give courage. The rulers betrayed their hesitation when the end of their solemn conclave was but to 'straitly threaten'; and less heroic confessors than Peter and John would have disregarded the prohibition as mere wind. None the less the attitude of ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts • Alexander Maclaren

... too raw, and no bloody-bones too bloody. And so we have King's Counsel, learned in the law, devising Provisional Governments, and Privy Councillors wallowing in imaginative treason. As for the Bishops, they will talk daggers as luridly as the rest, but they will not even threaten to use any. And so does the pagan rage, and ...
— The Open Secret of Ireland • T. M. Kettle

... you are up against? Have you looked into the unfathomable heart of this trouble? Understood the tug of the towns, the call of money to money; grasped the destructive restlessness of modern life; the abysmal selfishness of people when you threaten their interests; the age-long apathy of those you want to help? Have you ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... stormed and destroyed Aquileia, and, razing city after city into heaps of blackened ruins, advanced to Milan, boasting that "where his horses' hoofs trod the grass never grew." Rome awaited with trembling a fate which seemed to threaten unprecedented catastrophe. But in this awful crisis the Pope, Leo I., showed himself the true Defensor civitatis. He headed a splendid embassy to the camp of Attila. Already Leo had helped to trace with firm hand the deep lines of Christian ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 1 of 8 • Various

... or you shall do ill. If ill, you haue God for your enemy, and your owne conscience for a perpetually tormenting executioner. If well, you haue men for your enemies, and of men the greatest: whose enuie and malice will spie you out, and whose crueltie and tyrannie will euermore threaten you. Please the people you please a beast: and pleasing such, ought to be displeasing to your selfe. Please your selfe, you displease God: please him, you incurr a thousand dangers in the world, with purchase of a thousand displeasures. Whereof it growes, that if you ...
— A Discourse of Life and Death, by Mornay; and Antonius by Garnier • Philippe de Mornay

... planets at my birth did shine, They threaten every fortune mixt with mine. Fly the pursuit of my disastrous love, And from ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume 5 (of 18) - Amboyna; The state of Innocence; Aureng-Zebe; All for Love • John Dryden

... which he found abandoned by the enemy. Whilst still heated with the march Alexander plunged into the clear but cold stream of the Cydnus, which runs by the town. The result was a fever, which soon became so violent as to threaten his life. An Acarnanian physician, named Philip, who accompanied him, prescribed a remedy; but at the same time Alexander received a letter informing him that Philip had been bribed by Darius, the Persian king, to poison him. He had however, too much confidence in the trusty ...
— A Smaller History of Greece • William Smith

... in his commentaries, which he had left, concerning certain passages of Daniel. But although the outcome will teach how much weight should be given to this declaration, yet there are other signs which threaten a change in the power of the monks, that are no less certain than oracles. For it is evident how much hypocrisy, ambition, avarice there is in the monasteries, how much ignorance and cruelty among all the unlearned, what vanity in their sermons and in devising continually ...
— The Apology of the Augsburg Confession • Philip Melanchthon

... castle. I have seen troubles in Flanders, and have learnt how formidable the mob may become when it has once tasted blood; and it is well that you should both learn that, even when the commonalty have just grounds for complaint, they must not be allowed to threaten the security of the realm by ...
— A March on London • G. A. Henty

... Beaucaire He met her by a secret stair,— The night was centuries ago. Said Aucassin, "My love, my pet, These old confessors vex me so! They threaten all the pains of hell Unless I give you up, ma belle";— Said ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 4 (of 4) • Various

... fact that she had been hypnotized, and not remembering that she had talked, without doubt Phillis still feared that he would hypnotize her; he would threaten it again, and surely she would find a way to defend herself and escape ...
— Conscience, Complete • Hector Malot

... loud-mouthed and vaporing; we shall be strongest when the cause of our boasting has disappeared. When a country is fully conscious of the principles that belong to it, and sees them cleansed with her children's blood, through eyes that stand full with tears, she will invite, but no longer threaten; and the flag which she once waved in the face of all mankind to exasperate will rain persuasion as ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 92, June, 1865 • Various

... coroner got a fee, and the company got an official verdict, which would be final in case some foreign consul should threaten a damage suit. So well did they have matters in hand that nobody in North Valley had ever got anything for death or injury; in fact, as Hal found later, there had not been a damage suit filed against any coal-operator in that ...
— King Coal - A Novel • Upton Sinclair

... Aniela, announced that there could be no question of any long journey for her, as it would be positively dangerous. There seem to be some irregularities in her state. What a torture to hear his professional jargon, when every word he utters seems to threaten the life of the beloved woman. I told the doctor the position we are in, and he said that between two dangers he preferred ...
— Without Dogma • Henryk Sienkiewicz

... horse carefully down the next hollow, for the moon had gone behind a cloud just then, "when the Crees found out what had been done, they were naturally very angry—an' I don't wonder—an' they threaten now to expel the Saulteaux from Red River altogether, an' the white men along wi' them, unless the names of the Saulteaux chiefs are wiped out o' the contract, an' the annual payment made ...
— The Buffalo Runners - A Tale of the Red River Plains • R.M. Ballantyne

... hams, and cheese were consumed; and, from one end of the island to the other, not a morsel of food could be seen. Even the celery began to fail. A few bottles of wine, which for security had been secreted under ground, only remained. Famine now began to threaten. Every stone near the sea was examined for ...
— Thrilling Adventures by Land and Sea • James O. Brayman

... should be given the opportunity of escape and instantly shot down. Or it might be pretended that I had tried to escape, with a like result. Who, they urged, was to know in that half-light whether I had or had not actually attempted to run for my life, or to threaten their lives, circumstances under which the law said it was justifiable to shoot a prisoner already ...
— Marie - An Episode in The Life of the late Allan Quatermain • H. Rider Haggard

... nature, who dooms to a wage-earner's position all who came too late. In either case he is animated by a genuine passion for revolution, a passion which admits no compromise. Yet his numbers are too few to threaten the ...
— A History of Trade Unionism in the United States • Selig Perlman

... always in connection with a port or navigable river that the greater towns of the pre-railway periods arose, a day's journey away from the coast when sea attack was probable, and shifting to the coast itself when that ceased to threaten. Such sea-trading handicraft towns as Bruges, Venice, Corinth, or London were the largest towns of the vanishing order of things. Very rarely, except in China, did they clamber above a quarter of a million inhabitants, ...
— Anticipations - Of the Reaction of Mechanical and Scientific Progress upon - Human life and Thought • Herbert George Wells

... to me like a grievous smoke; I depart to a place where none can forbid me to dwell: that habitation is open unto all! As for the last garment of all, that is the poor body; beyond that, none can do aught unto me. This why Demetrius said to Nero: "You threaten me with death; it is Nature ...
— The Golden Sayings of Epictetus • Epictetus

... they came) which carry them fast and far, and infix them irrecoverably into the hearts of men. These wings are the beauty of the poet's soul. The songs, thus flying immortal from their mortal parent, are pursued by clamorous flights of censures, which swarm in far greater numbers and threaten to devour them; but these last are not winged. At the end of a very short leap they fall plump down and rot, having received from the souls out of which they came no beautiful wings. But the melodies of the poet ascend ...
— Essays, Second Series • Ralph Waldo Emerson

... threaten, will the heights be taken For future ages, and our nation's soul Can thence o'erlook the land in might unshaken, With even hand and right to rule the whole. It soon shall roll war's billows on to ...
— Poems and Songs • Bjornstjerne Bjornson

... curls a musky hue; Mars dyed his ruddy cheek; and from his eyes The Archer-star his glittering arrow flies; His wit from Hermes came; and Soha's care, (The half-seen star that dimly haunts the Bear) Kept off all evil eyes that threaten and ensnare, The sage stood mazed to see such fortunes meet, And Luna kissed the earth beneath his ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton

... discuss the prospects of to-morrow in detail, and tell stories of ancient twelfths, while chieftains from London, in full Highland dress, are painfully conscious of the whiteness of their legs. A handful of preposterous people who persist in going south when the world has its face northwards, threaten to complain to headquarters if they are not sent away, and an official with a loud voice and a subtle gift of humour intimates that a train is about ...
— Kate Carnegie and Those Ministers • Ian Maclaren

... the days of his prosperity, spontaneously sworn fealty to him. Alluding to this circumstance he said, as they were quitting the room, "Knowing what formerly passed between us, I am surprised you should come to threaten ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume VI. • Various

... jobs shed, businesses shuttered. Our health care is too costly, our schools fail too many, and each day brings further evidence that the ways we use energy strengthen our adversaries and threaten our planet. ...
— Inaugural Presidential Address - Contributed Transcripts • Barack Hussein Obama

... as to direct a second word even to the people, though a sad word? It is a complaint of iniquity and backsliding, and such as cannot be uttered, yet it is mercy to challenge them, yea, to chasten them. If the Lord would threaten a man with pure and unmixed judgments, if he would frame a threatening of a rod of pure justice, I think it should be this, "I will no more reprove thee, nor chasten thee," and he is not far from it, when he says, "Why shall ye be stricken any more?" &c. ver. 5. As if he would say, ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning

... a savage dog barking and tearing at the end of his chain as though he were longing to devour you, and yet if you have gone bravely up to him and bade him be still, he is cowed and never barks again? Such is the genius of infidelity; it loves to threaten those who retreat, yet it shrinks daunted back from those who meet it boldly; it is the lack of boldness on the part of the Christian which gives it all its power; when Christians are strong in the strength of their ...
— The Fair Haven • Samuel Butler

... infatuation will then have really ceased to exist. My Indian handmaid has been told by one of her countrymen to warn me of a danger that threatens me. The man did not tell her wherein this danger consists, but I am at a loss to know from what quarter it should threaten, if not from ...
— The Coming Conquest of England • August Niemann

... preservation is tantamount to the permanence of the subsequent union. He has a curious case, too, of a peasant who married a nymph and gave her a child but could not make her speak to him. He consulted a wise woman who advised him to threaten her with the fire for the baby if she would not talk. He did it and the charm worked. The Nymph spoke fiercely to him, "You dog, leave my child alone," she said, and seized it from him, and with it disappeared. ...
— Lore of Proserpine • Maurice Hewlett

... dear poet, do you not marry a deaf-mute, and one who is also something of an idiot? I ask nothing better than to please my husband. But you threaten to take away from a girl the very happiness you so kindly arrange for her; you are tearing away every gesture, every word, every look; you cut the wings of your bird, and then expect it to hover about you. I know poets are accused of inconsistency—oh! ...
— Modeste Mignon • Honore de Balzac

... formed a contrast with another abode in the same neighbourhood, on which much money had been lavished; where Italian colonnades were placed to excite the wonder of the rude crags, and a stone staircase, to threaten with destruction a wooden house. Venuses and Apollos condemned to lie hid in snow three parts of the year seemed equally displaced, and called the attention off from the surrounding sublimity, without inspiring any voluptuous sensations. ...
— Letters written during a short residence in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark • Mary Wollstonecraft

... and to wage war against human liberty. It is to recognize and honor as republican legislators, incorrigible men-stealers, MERCILESS TYRANTS, BLOOD THIRSTY ASSASSINS, who legislate with deadly weapons about their persons, such as pistols, daggers, and bowie-knives, with which they threaten to murder any Northern senator or representative who shall dare to stain their honor, or interfere with their rights! They constitute a banditti more fierce and cruel than any whose atrocities ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society

... this was not good advice, The only mischief was, it came too late; Of all experience 't is the usual price, A sort of income-tax laid on by fate: Juan had reach'd the room-door in a. trice, And might have done so by the garden-gate, But met Alfonso in his dressing-gown, Who threaten'd death—so Juan knock'd ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron

... are uncourteous so to rebuke me as ye do, for meseemeth I have done you good service, and ever ye threaten me I shall be beaten with knights that we meet, but ever for all your boast they lie in the dust or in the mire, and therefore I pray you rebuke me no more; and when ye see me beaten or yielden as recreant, then may ye bid me go from you shamefully; but first I let you wit I will not depart ...
— Le Morte D'Arthur, Volume I (of II) - King Arthur and of his Noble Knights of the Round Table • Thomas Malory

... to the people. Much prejudice and passion have, of course, been excited by the Leaguers since last January, and they have formed a regular and extensive organization; but a reaction has already commenced; the backbone of their power is broken. They can form branches, associations, and threaten us as they did a few months ago; but not a few amongst themselves are wavering. If the Government will act with liberality and energy, and the Home Government transmit an official decision on the question at issue, to be first submitted to the Legislature and then to the people, I believe His Excellency's ...
— The Story of My Life - Being Reminiscences of Sixty Years' Public Service in Canada • Egerton Ryerson

... mustn't think of it," said he, blandly. "It was only because I heard him threaten to get you into trouble if you didn't pay him, and I should have been so sorry ...
— My Friend Smith - A Story of School and City Life • Talbot Baines Reed

... draught of this speech before he delivered it warned him anxiously that its delivery might be fatal to his success in the election. This was shrewd advice, in the ordinary sense. While a slaveholder could threaten disunion with impunity, the mere suggestion that the existence of slavery was incompatible with freedom in the Union would hazard the political chances of any public man in the North. But Lincoln was inflexible. "It is true," said he, "and I will deliver it as written.... ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln

... the swirling snow-storm deterred her, and making the best of the alarming situation, she closed the door, but did not lock it, being more afraid now of what was inside the house than of anything left to threaten her from without. ...
— Midnight In Beauchamp Row - 1895 • Anna Katharine Green (Mrs. Charles Rohlfs)

... swift to scout The use of reason's slow appeal, Threaten to starve our children out And bring the country in to heel, There's nothing, as I understand it, So very new in this to show; The cave-man and the cross-roads bandit Were there ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, March 17, 1920 • Various

... should answer Kirke with dignity and firmness, but should not give any idea of the poor state of Quebec. "We concluded," says Champlain, "that if Kirke wished to see us he had better come, and not threaten from such a distance. That we did not in the least doubt the fact of Kirke having the commission of his king, as great princes always select men of brave ...
— The Makers of Canada: Champlain • N. E. Dionne

... arises," he broke out with a sudden inflection of wrath, "from inert, thick-skulled bigotry. Thought processes that are moral cramps and mental dyspepsia threaten to ruin your ...
— The Tyranny of Weakness • Charles Neville Buck

... at the Council meeting a few days later, the rank and file were impressed by the arguments. Dan, gnawing his nails and listening, watched anxiously. The idea was favorably received, and the delegates went back to their local unions, to urge, coerce and threaten. ...
— A Poor Wise Man • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... to kill Brown, but this would not answer. A cub had to take everything his boss gave, in the way of vigorous comment and criticism; and we all believed that there was a United States law making it a penitentiary offense to strike or threaten a pilot who was on duty. However, I could IMAGINE myself killing Brown; there was no law against that; and that was the thing I used always to do the moment I was abed. Instead of going over my river in my mind as was my duty, I threw business aside for ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... stable. Dick was putting the horse to the phaeton. He told me he had heard his master, two hours before, saddle Thanatos, and ride away. This made me yet more anxious about him. He did not often ride out early—seldom indeed after coming home late! Things seemed to threaten complication! ...
— The Flight of the Shadow • George MacDonald

... was his presence in the Court Room that made her tell the truth, reckless of the consequences, and she came to realize that she was not leaving the mountains because she would go to no place where she could not know of any danger that, in the present crisis, might threaten John Hale. ...
— The Trail of the Lonesome Pine • John Fox, Jr.

... the ocean trade of the Pacific that we did not possess on the Atlantic. The construction of the Canadian Pacific Railway and the establishment under large subventions from Canada and England of fast steamship service from Vancouver with Japan and China seriously threaten our shipping interests in the Pacific. This line of English steamers receives, as is stated by the Commissioner of Navigation, a direct subsidy of $400,000 annually, or $30,767 per trip for thirteen voyages, in addition to some further aid from the Admiralty in connection with contracts under ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, Volume IX. • Benjamin Harrison

... 1864.%—Lee now sent Jubal Early with 20,000 soldiers to move down the Shenandoah valley, enter Maryland, and threaten Washington. This he did, and after coming up to the fortifications of the city, he retreated to Virginia. A little later, Early sent his cavalry into Pennsylvania ...
— A School History of the United States • John Bach McMaster

... giving. Take it, lad. You are welcome to it. I bought it with a special eye to you, thinking that you might wear it under your armour in battle without greatly adding to the weight; but for such dangers as threaten you now it is invaluable. It is so light and soft that none will dream that you have it under your doublet, and I warrant me it will hold you safe against the ...
— Saint George for England • G. A. Henty

... others, upon the side of the hill behind our tents. They approached with much caution, one coming first with poised spear, and making many gestures, accompanied with much vociferous parleying, in which he sometimes seemed to threaten us if we did not be gone, and at others to admit of our stay. On Mr. Purdie, the assistant-surgeon, going up to him unarmed, a communication was brought about, and they received some articles of iron and toys, giving in exchange some of their implements; and after a short ...
— A Voyage to Terra Australis • Matthew Flinders

... to consider further the subject of bars in the river, but those at its mouth deserve some attention. The subject is one that has led to much theorizing, study, and fear—the latter particularly, from an ill-founded supposition that they threaten to cut off ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol. 5, No. 6, June, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... trusted, even in money transactions, they never deceived me, nor forfeited their promise. I am sorry to say, however, that when checked in their licentious appropriations, &c. they are very much addicted both to threaten and to execute revenge. ...
— A Historical Survey of the Customs, Habits, & Present State of the Gypsies • John Hoyland

... science. It is derogatory to the sacred loveliness of divine truth, either to promise any further reward to those who seek and find her than the enjoyment she brings to the soul in her own native sweetness, or to threaten those who neglect so divine a treasure with any other inconvenience than the loss of such felicity ...
— A Series of Letters In Defence of Divine Revelation • Hosea Ballou

... craze and the Japan war cry can hardly be accounted for except on the theory that it has been for somebody's interest to agitate them through the press. Whenever the Naval appropriation bill comes before Congress, the Far-Eastern war-clouds threaten in thousands of newspaper sanctums, while all of us shudder at the danger of war, for the benefit of ordnance manufacturers, battleship builders, and every incipient "Fighting Bob" who hopes some day to command another American Armada on its ...
— Commercialism and Journalism • Hamilton Holt

... were yet alive, every bone in the bodies of his soldiers when they disobeyed him; and for scratching Louis XV, with a knife, Damiens, after indescribable agonies, was torn asunder by horses in Paris, before an immense multitude. The French emigrants believed that they had only to threaten with a similar fate men like Kellermann and Hoche to make them flee without a blow. What chiefly concerned the nobles, therefore, was not to evolve a masterly campaign, but to propound the fundamental principles of monarchy, and to denounce an ...
— The Theory of Social Revolutions • Brooks Adams

... contribute an intelligent statement of their industrial function to this paper than a bee could write the works of Lord Avebury. Routineers can always be replaced, and replaced with profit, by educated functionaries. Consequently when the employers threaten us with emigration, our only regret as to the majority of them is that it is too good to be true."[472] "Supposing those who have the money were to threaten to leave the country and to take their money with them, would not that upset ...
— British Socialism - An Examination of Its Doctrines, Policy, Aims and Practical Proposals • J. Ellis Barker

... some time she regained her usual serenity, and said, with an attempted smile, "I know that I have made you very uncomfortable this morning, and I must set your poor heart at ease. You must have seen, on some fine summer's day, a black cloud suddenly appear, and threaten to pour down upon the country and lay it in waste. The lightest wind drives it away, and the blue sky and serene weather are restored. This is just the image of what has happened to ...
— Maria Antoinette - Makers of History • John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott

... in the boat had thought that the hearts of even his neighbors were as cold and hard as the ice that was destroying them had now forgotten his misanthropy, and was making a supper that, considering the hour, would threaten to an ordinary mortal more peril than that from which he had escaped. She drew from him—and especially from the coachman—the narrative of their thrilling experience, and every moment Hemstead grew more heroic in ...
— From Jest to Earnest • E. P. Roe

... with their eyes, hiding their grief and their misery. Sometimes again, the lover or the mistress were there and tore their gloves in their rage, wishing to rush at the bar to defend their love, to bring forward accusations in their turn, and would tell the advocate that he was lying, and would threaten him and revile him with all their indignant nature. Friends, however, would restrain them, would whisper something to them in a low voice, press their hands like after a funeral, and try to ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume II (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant

... and tigers May show their white teeth if they please, If the whole Noah's ark Should threaten and bark It wouldn't ...
— Songs for Parents • John Farrar

... in it. He was the soul of conciliatory kindness to the young vixen, but at times she would break violently into tears, accuse him of cruelly mistreating her, a helpless woman and a stranger in his court, and threaten to go home to dear old England and tell her brother, King Henry, all about it, and have him put things to right and redress her wrongs generally. In fact, she acted the part of injured innocence so perfectly that the poor old man would apologize ...
— When Knighthood Was in Flower • Charles Major

... dangers which threaten me and my family, both at home and abroad. With an enemy in the suburbs, sensible that the Protestants are plotting my ruin, I implore that help from God which I can not expect from man. I had recourse to my Saviour, and said, ...
— The Empire of Austria; Its Rise and Present Power • John S. C. Abbott

... history demonstrates, it is the extreme slowness with which the ordinary academic and critical mind acknowledges facts to exist which present themselves as wild facts, with no stall or pigeon-hole, or as facts which threaten to break up the accepted system. In psychology, physiology, and medicine, wherever a debate between the mystics and the scientifics has been once for all decided, it is the mystics who have usually proved to be right about ...
— The Will to Believe - and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy • William James

... Every day, as sure as fate, he comes upon the butcher's dog at the end of the village street, and every day his heart seems to stop and his legs begin to shake at the sight. Yet the butcher's dog does not fly at him, or even threaten to. He sits peaceably at his master's shop-door. But he is black, and he has a staring bloodshot eye and shows a row of sharp white teeth. He looks frightful. And then he squats there in the middle of bits of meat and offal ...
— Child Life In Town And Country - 1909 • Anatole France

... must have ended in ruin, without some speedy reformation. This I have already asserted in a former paper; and the replies I have read or heard, have been in plain terms to affirm the direct contrary; and not only to defend and celebrate the late persons and proceedings, but to threaten me with law and vengeance, for casting reflections on so many great and honourable men, whose birth, virtue and abilities, whose morals and religion, whose love of their country and its constitution in Church and ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IX; • Jonathan Swift

... in former days to Europe, absolute fiends. Had we even exacted a good road into their country with fortifications at the proper places, it might have checked the hopes of one day resuming the career of conquest that now keeps up the army and military spirit, to threaten us with a renewal of war whenever we are embarrassed on the plains. [W. ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman

... would be found when the advance continued. It required very little imagination to picture the German guns similarly placed and in similar numbers, for this offensive had alarmed the enemy, for did it not threaten the existence of their submarine bases in Belgium, to say nothing of their hold upon Lille? His defence was careful, however, as we found to our cost, and, however much the papers at home kept up the morale of England by sneers ...
— The Seventh Manchesters - July 1916 to March 1919 • S. J. Wilson

... will, his attempts lost even the semblance of love or decency. Many and many a night I feared to close my eyes in sleep, lest he should carry out his avowed purpose; for locks and bolts in a house in those days were considered unnecessary, and I improvised such defenses as I could. I used to threaten to call in my little German neighbor, to which he replied she would probably recognize a man's right to occupy the same apartment with his wife! Still, I think he was deterred somewhat by the fear of exposure ...
— The New Penelope and Other Stories and Poems • Frances Fuller Victor

... the Mud Turtle. The Pullman blanket lashed around the Mud Turtle cramped his style to a considerable degree, but for all of his impedimenta he was still active enough to threaten the peace-on-earth theory. The Wildcat spoke to him, "Boy, I sequesters you till de debbil leaves you. Mebbe by de time us gits to San F'mcisco ...
— Lady Luck • Hugh Wiley

... gasped Garrick, as the door bulged more and more and seemed almost to threaten to ...
— Guy Garrick • Arthur B. Reeve

... East, and cried out, MU—MU. To the Princess and her children, this imitation always afforded great amusement: when, however, the Caliph clattered, and bowed, and cried out, too long, then the Vizier would threaten him that he would disclose to his spouse what had been proposed outside the ...
— The Oriental Story Book - A Collection of Tales • Wilhelm Hauff

... he mockit the Heelandman by a' manner of means, shooting out his tongue at him, spitting at him, and girning at him wi' his queer outlandish physiognomy. Then he would tak haud of his tail in his twa hands, and wag it at Donald, and steeking his nieves, he would seem to threaten him wi' a leatherin'. A'thegither he was desperate impudent, and eneuch to try the patience of a saunt, no to spak o' a het-bluided Heelandman. It was gude for sair een to see how Donald behavit on this occasion. He raged like ane ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, - Issue 275, September 29, 1827 • Various



Words linked to "Threaten" :   betoken, augur, portend, prefigure, omen, prognosticate, auspicate, predict, bode, be, endanger, foreshadow, menace, jeopardize, exist, forecast, peril, presage, jeopardise, warn, foretell, offer



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