Threatening

How to spell threatening

11 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce threatening

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does threatening mean?

1. adjectiveExpressing or suggesting that harm, danger, or trouble is likely to come.
2. verbPresent participle of threaten: stating an intention to cause harm or warning of impending trouble.

Threatening in a sentence

• adjective

  The manager received a threatening email demanding payment within a day.

• verb

  The rising river was threatening the homes along the lower street.

• adjective

  Dark threatening clouds gathered over the valley before the storm broke.

• verb

  By threatening legal action, the firm hoped to recover the unpaid invoice.

Where does threatening come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This word grows from the Old English noun þreat, which originally meant a crowd or a pressing throng before it narrowed to mean coercion, oppression, or a declared intention to do harm. From that noun came the verb threatnian, meaning to press upon or to menace, and the modern verb 'threaten' carries that sense of looming danger. Adding the participle ending -ing produced 'threatening', describing something that signals harm or trouble to come. The spelling trap lives in the middle: the digraph 'ea' is pronounced as a short 'e', so writers who spell by ear often drop a letter, and the 'ten' before the ending hides a silent-feeling vowel. The root is purely Germanic, with no Latin or French detour, which is why the cluster looks irregular to modern eyes.

How the word is built

• threat (from Old English þreat: pressure, harm intended)
• -en (verb-forming suffix)
• -ing (present participle/adjective suffix)