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Threaten   /θrˈɛtən/   Listen
Threaten

verb
(past & past part. threatened; pres. part. threatening)
1.
Pose a threat to; present a danger to.  Synonyms: endanger, imperil, jeopardise, jeopardize, menace, peril.
2.
To utter intentions of injury or punishment against:.
3.
To be a menacing indication of something:.  "Danger threatens"






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Threaten" Quotes from Famous Books



... amid the stars They glower athwart the land Implacable, with 'eye like Mars To threaten and command.' Too cold, too truculent, to stay The awful bolt They fling, They make no bones about it—They Are ...
— Rhymes of the East and Re-collected Verses • John Kendall (AKA Dum-Dum)

... master, and the wind was blowing so hard that his voice would not carry. He was just about to shout "France! France!" when he woke up, with the perspiration standing on his brow and the conviction full upon him as he reached for his cloak and sword that real danger did threaten his lord, ...
— The King's Esquires - The Jewel of France • George Manville Fenn

... himself notorious as a privateersman. Every one had heard her awe-inspiring name, and every Yankee seafaring man prayed that he might never meet her on the seas. After the Alabama was sunk, and the Talahassee was withdrawn, the Kanawha still remained to threaten the shipping of the North. For a long time her whereabouts had been unknown, and then she was discovered by a Federal gunboat, which gave chase and fired upon her. Without returning fire, she raced in for shelter amongst ...
— Great Pirate Stories • Various

... material support or WMD, will be carefully coordinated to ensure prioritization of intelligence, proper allocation of resources, and, when necessary, swift, decisive action. We will not permit the world's most dangerous regimes and terrorists to threaten us with the world's most ...
— National Strategy for Combating Terrorism - February 2003 • United States

... parturition was accompanied with many throes, for sorely did he twist about his physiognomy, and much did he stumble in his speech, before he could express his idea, "That the lad being now wedded to his spiritual bride, it was hard to threaten him with ane temporal spouse in the same day." He then laughed a hoarse and brief laugh, and was suddenly grave and silent, as if abashed at ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott

... an annuity of L400 a year; but with the niggardliness which was so distinguishing a characteristic of his family, payment was not only withheld, but when the woman applied for payment, the duke was mean and foolish enough to threaten her with prison and the pillory. Mrs. Clarke, a woman of genius and resource, instead of being frightened, straightway betook herself to Messrs. Wilberforce and Whitbread, the supporters of the impeachment of Lord Melville, and confessed to them certain irregularities ...
— English Caricaturists and Graphic Humourists of the Nineteenth Century. - How they Illustrated and Interpreted their Times. • Graham Everitt

... of New France, projecting its mailed arm boldly into the Atlantic, had been cut off by the English, who now overran Acadia, and began to threaten Quebec with invasion by sea and land. Busy rumors of approaching danger were rife in the colony, and the gallant Governor issued orders, which were enthusiastically obeyed, for the people to proceed to ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby

... danger seemed to threaten. Kate was not only fearless as a passenger, but equally intrepid at the wheel. Many a time and oft she had driven her father's highest-powered car at dizzying speeds along worse roads than the one her machine was now following. Velocity was to her a kind of stimulant, wonderfully ...
— The Air Trust • George Allan England

... has the country endured the offenses of the leaders of a party which once knew greatness. Too long have we been blind to the bacchanal of corruption. Too long have we listlessly watched the assembling of the forces that threaten our country and ...
— The Art of Public Speaking • Dale Carnagey (AKA Dale Carnegie) and J. Berg Esenwein

... eminently fitted you. Intrench yourself behind the letter of the law. Avoid, carefully avoid, the possibility of any sinister evidence. And having uniformly taken these precautions, defy all the malice of your enemies. They may threaten, but they shall never hurt you. They may make you tremble and shrink with fancied terrors, but they shall never be able to man so much as a straw against you. Immortality, my lord, is suspended over your head. Do not shudder at the sound. It shall ...
— Four Early Pamphlets • William Godwin

... of diplomacy in this Eastern Question has been, with great show of indignation, to threaten the Sultan with destruction unless—he promises certain ...
— The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 20, March 25, 1897 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various

... an extending network of elevators under the control of the Western farmers has brought about possibilities which threaten to revolutionize the whole established commercial system. Farmers' Elevators in Dakota, Minnesota and Alberta have proved that it is practical to utilize the same staff at each point to manage the distribution of farm supplies as well ...
— Deep Furrows • Hopkins Moorhouse

... 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, even though ...
— Anticipations - Of the Reaction of Mechanical and Scientific Progress upon - Human life and Thought • Herbert George Wells

... all old campers to do this, whenever they happen to awaken; not that he suspected that there would be any peril hovering around; but then possibly the fire might have worked its way through a line of dead grass, and threaten to extend; or it perhaps needed another small log to keep the blaze going, and ward ...
— The Boy Scouts' First Camp Fire - or, Scouting with the Silver Fox Patrol • Herbert Carter

... engrossed with this Spanish marriage, which, though it does not threaten war (for the English care very little about the Spanish marriages) threatens complications. Albert has told you all that passed between the dear Queen and me, and the very absurd ground on which the French make their stand. The details of the story are very bad—and ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Vol 2 (of 3), 1844-1853 • Queen Victoria

... cried Don John. "Get me a priest, a monk, a bishop,—anything that wears a frock and can speak Latin. Bring him here. Threaten his life, in my name, if you like. Tell him Don John of Austria is in extreme need, and must have a priest. Quick, man! Fly! Your life and fortune are in your legs! ...
— In The Palace Of The King - A Love Story Of Old Madrid • F. Marion Crawford

... "concerning the dangers of patronage or appointments for personal or partisan considerations have been strengthened by my observation and experience in the executive office, and I believe these dangers threaten ...
— Historical Essays • James Ford Rhodes

... W—— either has not received my letter or does not mean to answer it, for I have received no reply, and I dare not try again. Up to a certain point I am impudent enough, but not beyond that. Why do you threaten me with dancing to me? Have I lately given you cause to think I deserve to have such a punishment hung in terrorem over me? Besides, threatening me is injudicious, for it rouses a spirit of resistance in me not easy to break down. I assure you o [in allusion to my mispronunciation of ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble

... knowledge as a means to power" (p. 98-9). And the object to which he will apply this power is "the conquest of death: first the overcoming of death in the individual by the incorporation of the motives of his life into an undying purpose, and then the defeat of that death which seems to threaten our species upon a cooling planet beneath a cooling sun" (p. 99). Ultimately, then, it would seem that God does intend to undertake the control of phenomena. Dealing with ice-caps is not so entirely outside his province as one had hastily assumed. The Invisible King is not, after all, a roi faineant. ...
— God and Mr. Wells - A Critical Examination of 'God the Invisible King' • William Archer

... Belisarius trampled all the combinations of diplomatists into the dust. In the early part of July, 536, he had succeeded in capturing the important city of Neapolis, and had begun to threaten Rome. The Gothic warriors, disgusted at the incapacity of their King, and probably suspecting his disloyalty to the nation, met (August, 536) under arms upon the plain of Regeta[66], deposed Theodahad, and elected a veteran named Witigis as his successor. Witigis at once ...
— The Letters of Cassiodorus - Being A Condensed Translation Of The Variae Epistolae Of - Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator • Cassiodorus (AKA Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator)

... placed in his integrity, and agreed to take charge of the treasure. Next day the merchant returned to the kazi, who bade him go back to the dervish and demand his money once more, and should he refuse, threaten to complain to the kazi. The result may be readily guessed: no sooner did the merchant mention the kazi than the rascally dervish said, "My good friend, what need is there to complain to the kazi? Here ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton

... of God, if the French should enter the city victoriously, our last step before evacuating it would be to kill every one of you. Do you hear, Tyrolese guards? If the prisoners do not keep quiet, if they make any noise, or even threaten you, shoot down the ringleaders! But if the enemy penetrates into the city, then shoot them all, and do not spare a single one of them. [Footnote: Hormayr's "History of Andreas Hofer," vol. i., p. 258. ] We will not incur the disgrace of re-enforcing the enemy by several ...
— Andreas Hofer • Lousia Muhlbach

... "Don't you threaten me!" he cried out vindictively, "or I'll have you put under bond. The fault is your own if you failed to read this contract, or failed to understand its intent. But there it stands, a paper of record and unbeatable in any court in the land. I challenge you to break it—every provision ...
— Wunpost • Dane Coolidge

... became so great that he found it impossible to bear up against it, the water falling on the deck of the little craft in such masses as to cause it to shake to the centre, and, though a vessel of singularly lively qualities, to threaten to bury it beneath its weight. The people of the Scud averred that never before had they been out in such a tempest, which was true; for, possessing a perfect knowledge of all the rivers and headlands and havens, Jasper would have carried the cutter in shore long ere this, and placed her ...
— The Pathfinder - The Inland Sea • James Fenimore Cooper

... expressions, struggled to free himself; but it was impossible, for the impression of Solomon's seal prevented him. Perceiving that the fisherman had the advantage of him, he thought fit to dissemble his anger; "Fisherman," said he, "take heed you do not what you threaten; for what I spoke to you was only by way of jest." "O genie!" replied the fisherman, "thou who wast but a moment ago the greatest of all genies, and now art the least of them, thy crafty discourse will signify nothing, to the sea ...
— The Arabian Nights - Their Best-known Tales • Unknown

... than he had been before that day. Why didn't the old man "pitch into him," and accuse him of kindling the fire? Why didn't he get angry, as he did sometimes, and call him a young vagabond, and threaten to horsewhip him? Ben talked of the pinks, of the weather, the crops, and the latest news; but he did not say a word about the destruction of the boat-house, or Noddy's absence ...
— Work and Win - or, Noddy Newman on a Cruise • Oliver Optic

... when I was in a bad mood he tried to squeeze more money out of me. He had been living in luxury for some time, while I was broke almost continually. I kicked and refused to give up. Then he had the insolence to threaten me with exposure. I lost my head and choked him. Directly after that he turned like a viper and blowed everything to Merriwell. That was my downfall. I had to skip. Is there any reason why I should ...
— Frank Merriwell's Races • Burt L. Standish

... perpetrated by the Ku-Klux above referred to, and few, if any, have been brought to punishment. A number of the counties of this State (Tennessee) are entirely at the mercy of this organization, and roving bands of nightly marauders bid defiance to the civil authorities, and threaten to drive out every man, white or black, who does not submit to their arbitrary dictation. To add to the general lawlessness of these communities, bad men of every description take advantage of the circumstances surrounding them, and perpetrate acts of violence, from personal or pecuniary motives, ...
— Handbook of Home Rule (1887) • W. E. Gladstone et al.

... later, in a voice resigned to determination. "All right, Mr. Pocket. It's plain to me I got to come right up an' snatch you out bald-headed. An' I'll do it! I'll do it!" he would threaten still later. ...
— Moon-Face and Other Stories • Jack London

... much, is not that the latter have become hardened to them—though this counts for something—but that they know of various counteracting and compensating phenomena which prevent, or are sure to prevent, them in the long run from doing the mischief which they seem to threaten. In other words, they understand the checks and balances of their society as well as its tendencies. Anybody who considers these things will be careful how he denounces people whose manners differ from his own for want of spirituality or morality, and we may add that ...
— Reflections and Comments 1865-1895 • Edwin Lawrence Godkin

... honour of her house, she and all her family would withdraw from the Court. She was indignant at the mere idea of placing her daughter in the scales with the granddaughter of a cook. In vain did the whole party of the Importants, with Beaufort and Guise at their head, agitate and threaten; in vain did Madame de Chevreuse, who had not yet lost all her influence with the Queen, strive earnestly in behalf of her mother-in-law. It did not suffice for the resentment of the Princess and the Duke d'Enghien that Madame ...
— Political Women (Vol. 1 of 2) • Sutherland Menzies

... your pure mind, dearest, has never thought of. There is the other man. Think of the power he holds over your friend. If he still wishes to possess her in spite of herself, he may intimidate her, he may threaten to reveal all to her husband. This would make her miserable, and perhaps in the long run, her will being broken, it might even make her yield. Or the man may really tell her husband in order to insult and outrage ...
— The Eternal City • Hall Caine

... be the good of such thoughts to her? Had not things gone too far with her for such thoughts to be useful? She loved the Jew, and had told him so; and not all the penalties with which the priests might threaten her could lessen her love, or make her think of her safety here or hereafter, as a thing to be compared with her love. Religion was much to her; the fear of the everlasting wrath of Heaven was much to her; but love was paramount! What if it were her soul? Would she not give ...
— Nina Balatka • Anthony Trollope

... was, under these circumstances, not strange that abuses early crept into railroad management which, long tolerated by the people and unchecked and even encouraged by public officers, finally assumed such proportions as to threaten the very foundation of free government. Great discoveries that add rapidly to the wealth of a country tend to overthrow a settled condition of things, and organized capital and power, if not restrained ...
— The Railroad Question - A historical and practical treatise on railroads, and - remedies for their abuses • William Larrabee

... 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

... come now! keep your temper in hand! All fairly erudite persons know you cannot do the thing you threaten: and it is notorious that the weakest wheel of every cart creaks loudest. So do you cultivate a judicious taciturnity! for really nobody is going to put up with petulance in an ugly and toothless woman of your age, as I tell you for ...
— Jurgen - A Comedy of Justice • James Branch Cabell

... a hint of iron in his voice, and he was obviously not the man to threaten and not fulfil. But ...
— Winds of the World • Talbot Mundy

... the king should compel them to fight for it themselves. The more glad the citizens had been at first after Milo's arrival to be quit of the burdensome service of mounting guard, the more unwillingly they now rallied to the standards of the king: it was necessary to threaten the negligent with the penalty of death. This result now justified the peace party in the eyes of all, and communications were entered into, or at any rate appeared to have been entered into, even with Rome. Pyrrhus, ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen

... Nor held my peace, O fool! but vowed revenge if time should send A happy tide; if I should come to Argos any more, A victor then: so with my words I drew down hatred sore. This was the first fleck of my ill; Ulysses ever now Would threaten with some new-found guilt, and mid the folk would sow Dark sayings, and knowing what was toward, sought weapons new at need; Nor wearied till with Calchas now to help him to the deed.— 100 —But why upturn these ugly things, or spin out time ...
— The AEneids of Virgil - Done into English Verse • Virgil

... nothing further had come to threaten his recovery. Dick carefully inspected the mail, but no suspicious letter had arrived, and as the days went on David's peace seemed finally re-established. He made no more references to Johns Hopkins, slept like a child, and railed almost ...
— The Breaking Point • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... threatned to kill him; and if he had added, that the Devil prompting his Fear beguil'd him, he had said nothing but what was certainly true; for if it was in Satan's Power to make the People insolent and outrageous enough to threaten and bully the old venerable Prophet (for he was not yet a Priest) who was the Brother of their Oracle Moses, and had been Partner with him in so many of his Commissions; I say, if he cou'd bring up the Passions ...
— The History of the Devil - As Well Ancient as Modern: In Two Parts • Daniel Defoe

... her figure, alert and proud no longer, bent on the window ledge in such lonely and weary fashion that a strong arm would have involuntarily stretched out to shield it from any hardness or blow that might threaten, though the owner ...
— What Answer? • Anna E. Dickinson

... reached his palace, and the servants who opened the door of his carriage started back with alarm at the fearful expression of their master's face. It had become of an ashen gray, his blue lips quivered, and his gloomily-gleaming eyes seemed to threaten those ...
— The Daughter of an Empress • Louise Muhlbach

... down under the bare heaven; but this morning we happened on this kind forester, who gave us to eat, and took us to his house and gave us meat and drink; for which it were seemlier to reward him than threaten him. Now it is our pleasure that ye lead us back to Greenharbour; but as for this youth, that ye do him no hurt, but let him go free, according to thy word spoken e'en ...
— Child Christopher • William Morris

... you threaten me with the 'Bureau'?" shouted Desmit, starting toward him in a rage, and aiming a blow at him with the heavy ...
— Bricks Without Straw • Albion W. Tourgee

... suppose I like having to do these things? You women have never the slightest sense of common justice. The whole thing is perfectly beastly to me. But how could I live with a girl who would be ready to threaten me with the gallows every time she got out of bed wrong foot first? It's not fair to blame me for ...
— The Ashiel mystery - A Detective Story • Mrs. Charles Bryce

... exposure of human nature will become mere fault-finding, and a fault-finding ministry is a ministry of desolation. Again, without a pitiful heart the preacher's utterance of the divine judgment will be but more or less terrifying threats, and the pulpit is not set up to threaten but to pronounce. We have heard preaching of this order. "I am not at all well to-night," said a clergyman of whom we once read, "and I shall give it 'em hot." Men are sometimes reminded of their sins, ...
— The Message and the Man: - Some Essentials of Effective Preaching • J. Dodd Jackson

... particular object, there is formed the rudiment of a sentiment. Suppose that a child is thrown into the company of some person given to frequent outbursts of violent anger, say, a violent-tempered father who is otherwise indifferent to the child and takes no further notice of him than to threaten, scold, and, perhaps, beat him. At first the child experiences fear at each exhibition of violence, but repetition of these incidents very soon creates the habit of fear, and in the presence of his father, even in his mildest moods, the child is timorous; ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park

... temples to rifle, and then, overflowing with wealth, I'll back to Rome.' And he moved away towards the Temple, muttering to himself: 'What care I for Varro the Proconsul? He cannot stay me in my career, armed as I am with mandate from Nero. He will vex and threaten should he know I have that woman. But it must end there. Acratus is supreme in this expedition, and cannot be interfered with, ...
— Saronia - A Romance of Ancient Ephesus • Richard Short

... appeals to unknown aid. Man knows not what to become in the presence of that awful incantation. He bows under the enigma of those Draconian intonations. What latent meaning have they? What do they signify? What do they threaten? What do they implore? It would seem as though all bonds were loosened. Vociferations from precipice to precipice, from air to water, from the wind to the wave, from the rain to the rock, from the zenith to the nadir, from the stars to the foam—the abyss unmuzzled—such ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo

... any displeasure on hearing Mademoiselle Kayser announced. He was waiting for her. As Marianne could not feel free so long as he held the proof of her imprudence, some day or other she must inevitably seek him to supplicate or threaten him. The letter received overnight had apprised him ...
— His Excellency the Minister • Jules Claretie

... informed that the country had recovered itself, and was become more populous than ever, when, in the year 1767, the small-pox, brought by a soldier from Okotzk, broke out among them for the first time, marking its progress with ravages not less dreadful than the plague, and seeming to threaten their entire extirpation. They compute that near twenty thousand died of this disorder in Kamtschatka, the Koreki country, and the Kurile Islands. The inhabitants of whole villages were swept away. Of this we had sufficient proofs before our ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 17 • Robert Kerr

... He does not love me, he is not kind to me, but I have duties to fulfil with regard to him. What would I not do to avert the calamities with which you threaten him?—Listen," she continued after a pause, "I will not say another word about separation; you shall come here as in the past, and I will still give you my forehead to kiss. If I refused once or twice, it was pure coquetry, indeed it was. But let us understand each other," ...
— The Thirteen • Honore de Balzac

... will make me—you? You forget that it is I who have paid for these apartments from the very first, and you threaten to put me out of them. Be silent, good-for-nothing! Do you think I do not know how you stole a portion of Vaudrec's bequest from Madeleine? Do you think I ...
— Bel Ami • Henri Rene Guy de Maupassant

... him. "You're just the man to go down there and tell 'em so! You probably have inside information. All I know is hearsay! I'll advise 'em and you threaten 'em. Come along, Blanchard! We'll make a ...
— All-Wool Morrison • Holman Day

... Providence which has never failed to interpose for our relief at the most critical periods of our history. One year ago the sectional strife between the North and the South on the dangerous subject of slavery had again become so intense as to threaten the peace and perpetuity of the Confederacy. The application for the admission of Kansas as a State into the Union fostered this unhappy agitation and brought the whole subject once more before Congress. ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 4 (of 4) of Volume 5: James Buchanan • James D. Richardson

... bond or free, to take up again the customary services, and forced work on all who had no income in land, or were not otherwise engaged. The lord on whose manor the tenant had heretofore dwelt had preferential claim to his labour, and could threaten with imprisonment every refractory villein. Within two years a statute had been enacted by Parliament which was far more detailed in its operation, fixing wages at the rate they had been in the twentieth year of the King's reign (i.e. at a period before the plague, when labour was plentiful), ...
— Mediaeval Socialism • Bede Jarrett

... persistently continued Ignatius Nikiforovitch, "of those depraved and savage people who threaten the existence ...
— The Awakening - The Resurrection • Leo Nikoleyevich Tolstoy

... Potsdam, and repaired thither immediately; and on the 3d of November, 1805, he engaged Frederick in the third coalition. The Prussian array was immediately withdrawn from the Russian frontiers, and M. de Haugwitz repaired to Bruenn to threaten Napoleon with it. But the battle of Austerlitz shut his mouth; and within a fortnight after, the wily minister, having quickly turned round to the side of the conqueror, signed with him the participation of the fruits ...
— History of the Expedition to Russia - Undertaken by the Emperor Napoleon in the Year 1812 • Count Philip de Segur

... a safe person to have much to do with, might in some degree account for this; still I always felt a kind of instinctive dislike and mistrust of Cumberland, which led me to avoid him as much as possible on my own account. In the present instance, when the danger seemed to threaten my friend, this feeling assumed a vague character of fear; "and yet," reasoned I with myself, "what is there to dread? Oaklands has plenty of money at his command; besides, he says they play pretty evenly, so that he must win nearly as often ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley

... means, and unite all their efforts, to prevent the general peace, the object of the wishes of all Europe, the constant aim of their labours, from being disturbed anew; and to guard it from every attempt, that would threaten to replunge nations into the ...
— Memoirs of the Private Life, Return, and Reign of Napoleon in 1815, Vol. I • Pierre Antoine Edouard Fleury de Chaboulon

... Habron depended to a great extent on the fact that he, as well as his brother, had been heard to threaten to "do for" the murdered man, to shoot the "little bobby." Cock was a zealous young officer of twenty-three years of age, rather too eager perhaps in the discharge of his duty. In July of 1876 he had ...
— A Book of Remarkable Criminals • H. B. Irving

... to herself, "if I could only know that my husband's love isn't gone forever, I could take comfort in planning to carry it out; but oh, if he hadn't quite left off caring for me, how could he threaten me so, and then go away without making up, without saying good-by, even if he didn't kiss me? I couldn't have gone away from him so for one day, and he expects to be away for ten. Ten days! such a long, long while!" and her ...
— Elsie's New Relations • Martha Finley

... houses was found quite a large cellar, well stored with potatoes. These were eagerly seized. All the other stores of the Indians the insatiable flames had consumed. Starvation now began to threaten the army. The sparsely settled country afforded no scope for forage. There were no herds of cattle, no well-replenished magazines near at hand. Neither was there game enough in the spreading wilderness to supply so many hungry mouths. The troops were compelled to eat even the very ...
— David Crockett: His Life and Adventures • John S. C. Abbott

... earth is yet another explanation of the fact that the maintenance of the race at its proper strength requires a batch of three or four hundred eggs from each mother. Subject to many accidents, the Cigale is fertile to excess. By the prodigality of her ovaries she conjures the host of perils which threaten her offspring. ...
— Social Life in the Insect World • J. H. Fabre

... did not occur at any low-water period; the workmen therefore had to depend on torches and moonlight. Nor is the portability of this form of building its least advantage: should there occur any local changes which might threaten the safety of the house, it can be taken down, and erected in another ...
— Smeaton and Lighthouses - A Popular Biography, with an Historical Introduction and Sequel • John Smeaton

... did M. Paul employ to surprise my secret—to wheedle, to threaten, to startle it out of me. Sometimes he placed Greek and Latin books in my way, and then watched me, as Joan of Arc's jailors tempted her with the warrior's accoutrements, and lay in wait for the issue. Again he quoted I know not what authors and passages, and while ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte

... what Jackson had gained or lost by this hasty attack. The British were still in a position to threaten New Orleans. They had not been driven away, and the rest of their large army, which had not yet come up, was hurrying forward to help them. They had lost a great many more men than Jackson had, but they could spare men better than he could, ...
— Strange Stories from History for Young People • George Cary Eggleston

... done, Philip of Spain would never have been able to threaten England with his "Invincible Armada." But the brave Englishmen of those days had to deal with a treacherous queen. The Hollanders who had engaged in a desperate struggle that they might have done with lies, and serve God with honesty and sincerity, ...
— Newfoundland and the Jingoes - An Appeal to England's Honor • John Fretwell

... What was it that made him press his lips so tightly, one against the other, as if he would repress a cry of agony, or an execration? And why does he listen now with bated breath, his gaze fixed upon the hut, and both hands raised, as if to threaten an approaching enemy? Suddenly he sprang up, and rushed trembling to the door, and, while in the act of bursting it open, he fell back, pale as death, as if his foot had trodden upon a poisonous serpent. Thus retreating, with wildly staring eyes, ...
— Frederick The Great and His Family • L. Muhlbach

... which had thus fought its way at fearful cost from the Rapidan to the James, was now to change its base, and threaten the rebel capital from the south. Petersburgh was now the objective point, and this was regarded as the door ...
— Three Years in the Sixth Corps • George T. Stevens

... of pine-land probably," said M. Fille—with anxiety, however, for the red glow lay in the direction of St. Saviour's where were the Manor Cartier and Jean Jacques' mills. Maitre Fille was possessed of a superstition that all the things which threaten a man's life to wreck it, operate awhile in their many fields before they converge like an army in one field to deliver the last attack on their victim. It would not have seemed strange to him, if out of the night a voice of the unseen had said that the glow in the sky came ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... begin to make themselves felt, not, indeed, by her, for she remains sublimely unconscious to the end, but by the men who are compelled to associate with her upon her ventures. No man will ever hesitate to rebuke another for carrying his gun in such a way as to threaten danger; but, when a lady allows him to inspect the inside of her loaded gun-barrels, or shoots down the line at an evasive rabbit, he must suffer in silence, and can only seek compensation for restraining his tongue by incontinently removing his body to a safe place, where ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., December 6, 1890 • Various

... his lip. Then he spoke low and earnestly, while he held his gaze fixed upon the girl's bright eyes. "Miss Carmen, if you knew that the Church now afforded you the only refuge from the dangers that threaten, you would turn to her as a frightened ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking

... Philaritus challenge his supposed rival, who, having witnessed his pretended advances to Castarina, eagerly responds. Their meeting is, however, interrupted, in the one tolerably good scene in the play, by the appearance of the two shepherdesses, who threaten to slay one another unless their lovers desist. Arismena's coldness, it may be mentioned, has been shaken by Philaritus having rescued her from the pursuit of a satyr, and the two maidens now consent to make return for the long suit of their lovers. While, however, they ...
— Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama - A Literary Inquiry, with Special Reference to the Pre-Restoration - Stage in England • Walter W. Greg

... the passages give the sense of an actual attack on the waves—living things which men might terrify, and perhaps with this was combined the belief that no one could die during a rising tide. Similarly French fishermen threaten to cut a fog in two with a knife, while the legend of S. Lunaire tells how he threw a knife at a fog, thus causing its disappearance.[585] Fighting the waves is also referred to in Irish texts. Thus Tuirbe Tragmar would "hurl a cast ...
— The Religion of the Ancient Celts • J. A. MacCulloch

... to earth, from earth again to steed, they moaned with astonishment and some relief. But the horses, the horses—never to have seen any great four-footed things, and now these that were proud and pawed the earth and neighed and—De Ojeda's black horse—reared, curvetted, bounded, appeared to threaten! The eyes, the mane, the great teeth!—There grew a legend that they were fed upon men's ...
— 1492 • Mary Johnston

... attempt succeeded, I was to demand the dead bodies, and particularly that of Captain Cook; to threaten them with our vengeance in case of a refusal; but by no means to fire, unless attacked; and not to land on any account whatever. These orders were delivered to me before the whole party, and ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 16 • Robert Kerr

... a bent, The temple stood of Mars armipotent: The frame of burnish'd steel, that cast a glare From far, and seem'd to thaw the freezing air. A strait long entry to the temple led, Blind with high walls; and horror over head: Thence issued such a blast, and hollow roar, 550 As threaten'd from the hinge to heave the door: In through that door, a northern light there shone; 'Twas all it had, for windows there were none. The gate was adamant; eternal frame! Which, hew'd by Mars himself, from Indian quarries came, The labour of a god; and all along Tough iron plates were clench'd ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol II - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden

... this winter? There is not a supply of wood or coal in the city—and it is said there are not adequate means of transporting it hither. Flour at $16 per barrel, and bacon at 75 cts. per pound, threaten a famine. And yet there are no beggars in the streets. We must get a million of men in arms and drive the invader from our soil. We are capable of it, and we must do it. Better die in battle than die of starvation produced ...
— A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital • John Beauchamp Jones

... Mississippi scheme of Law was at its height, or rather it began to threaten that disastrous catastrophe which convulsed the whole financial world. Every effort was making to keep the bubble inflated. The vagrant population of France was swept off from the streets at night, and conveyed ...
— Wolfert's Roost and Miscellanies • Washington Irving

... what we've been doing ever since they smashed us at Mons, in Belgium. You see those beggars creep out, trying to get around us. The Frenchmen made a bad guess at the beginning, and sent too many men to Alsace, and so this chap Von Kluck had enough men to threaten to surround us. But his ...
— The Boy Scouts on the Trail • George Durston

... the end of the year. The macroeconomic adjustments should take hold in 1997, and the economy is expected to grow by 4% or more. Increased salary demands by public and private sector workers, however, threaten ...
— The 1997 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.

... all your calumnies, and have but a word to add, that I may yet incline you to accept of your best interest, and prevent that dreadfull ruine which your obstinacy does threaten. Is it not as perspicuous as the Sun, that it lies in your power to reform his Counsell, introduce your selves, make what composition you can desire, have all the security that mortall men can imagine, and the greatest Princes of Europe to engage in the performance? This were ...
— An Apologie for the Royal Party (1659); and A Panegyric to Charles the Second (1661) • John Evelyn

... hundred, and exclaimed: "Citizen soldiers, the president of the council of five hundred declares to you that the large majority of that council is at this moment kept in fear by the daggers of a few representatives, who surround the tribune, threaten their colleagues with death, and occasion the most terrible deliberations. General, and you, soldiers and citizens, you will only recognise as legislators of France those who follow me. As for those who remain in the Orangery, let force expel them. Those brigands are no longer representatives ...
— History of the French Revolution from 1789 to 1814 • F. A. M. Mignet

... bold throw for the throne, and, aided as he will be by the pope and by Phillip of France, methinks that his chances are better than those of the young prince. A man's power, in warlike times, is more than a boy's. He can intrigue and promise and threaten, while a boy must be in the hands of partisans. I fear that Prince Arthur will have troubled times indeed before he mounts the throne of England. Should Richard survive until he becomes of age to take the field himself and head armies, ...
— Winning His Spurs - A Tale of the Crusades • George Alfred Henty

... gained the ascendant at present, that reason (at least pretenders to it, who must needs hear with their eyes, and see with their ears, and understand with their elbows till the order of nature be inverted) threaten not a little to banish revealed religion and its most important doctrines out of the professing world.—A latitudinarian scheme prevails among the majority, the greater part, with the Athenians, spending their time only to ...
— Biographia Scoticana (Scots Worthies) • John Howie

... no very shrewd reasoner, fellow," quoth the knight; "for if it be within the law for you to threaten him with your club, then it is also lawful for me to ...
— The White Company • Arthur Conan Doyle

... 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 ...
— Essays, Second Series • Ralph Waldo Emerson

... Irish Manufactures." As has been pointed out in the notes prefixed to the pamphlets in the present volume, England had, apparently, gone to work systematically to ruin Irish manufactures. They seemed to threaten ruin to English industries; at least so the people in England thought. The pernicious legislation began in the reign of Charles II. and continued in that of William III. The Irish manufacturer was not permitted to export his products and found a precarious livelihood ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Vol. VII - Historical and Political Tracts—Irish • Jonathan Swift

... to the Nurse, "I must needs shudder at this danger, seeing it doth threaten my Lady Maria d'Avalos no less than myself. Tell her I will not return again to her chamber, cost me what regrets it will, before that the Prince's suspicions ...
— The Well of Saint Clare • Anatole France

... with her last morsel and clothe him with her under-petticoat. But Tabitha was a queer old woman, and, though never infected with Peter's flightiness, had become so accustomed to his freaks and follies that she viewed them all as matters of course. Hearing him threaten to tear the house down, she looked ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... by to excuse and to protect. In vain Astier-Rehu scolded and snapped his jaw, a prominent feature which, in the days when he was a professor, had gained him the nickname of Crocodilus. In the last resort, he would threaten to pack his trunk and go back to ...
— The Immortal - Or, One Of The "Forty." (L'immortel) - 1877 • Alphonse Daudet

... intensely bored with works of fiction,—beginning with "Gil Blas," and ending with—on the whole, I won't even mention it,—than I ever was by the Latin Grammar or Rollin's History. Naturally, therefore, I should not wish to threaten my friends with the punishment I have endured from others. But then, as I said before, if I write down the circumstances that have come to my knowledge, with some account of persons, opinions, and conversations, no one can accuse me of writing ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 27, January, 1860 • Various

... is told me, is already searching for you. It cannot be long before he finds your hiding place, and then no man may call your lives safe by night or day. And not only would ye yourselves be in peril, but peril would threaten good Jean and Margot; and methinks you would be sorely loath that harm should come to them through the faithful kindness they have ever shown to ...
— In the Days of Chivalry • Evelyn Everett-Green

... stalks apace among our national organizations. Through its cautious yet pronounced policy, through its seeking after definite results and excluding all economic vagaries, it bids fair to overcome the disputes that disturb it from within and the onslaughts of Socialism and of Bolshevism that threaten it from without. ...
— The Armies of Labor - Volume 40 in The Chronicles Of America Series • Samuel P. Orth

... exercised of late on the subject of two epidemics, which, showing themselves formerly in a few sporadic cases, have begun to set in with the violence of the cattle-disease: I mean Eloquence and Statuary. They threaten to render the country unfit for human habitation, except by the Deaf and Blind. We had hitherto got on very well in Chesumpscot, having caught a trick of silence, perhaps from the fish which we cured, more medicorum, by laying them out. But this summer some misguided young men among us ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, No. 38, December, 1860 • Various

... threaten me with violence, vassal?" cried the other, retreating some paces farther as he spoke. "Beltrame!" he called again. "Are you never coming?" A voice answered him from the thicket, and with a clank of steel a half-dozen men flung themselves into ...
— Love-at-Arms • Raphael Sabatini

... finding that matters were satisfactorily arranged, retired to England. We afterwards knew that he had discovered the defect of title, on applying to a well-known conveyancer, to raise a considerable sum by way of mortgage, and that his first step was to threaten legal proceedings against Crowther & Jenkins for the recovery of his money; but a hint he obtained of the futility of proceedings against them, determined him to offer the estate at a low figure to Linden, relying upon that gentleman's ostentatious contempt of lawyers that the blot in the title, ...
— The Experiences of a Barrister, and Confessions of an Attorney • Samuel Warren

... where my mistake lay. One mustn't threaten a man of Matheson's calibre. Please understand this, Miss Verney, all question of divorce ...
— Swirling Waters • Max Rittenberg

... and hide itself. The jockeys say of certain horses, that "they look over the whole ground." The outdoor life, and hunting, and labor, give equal vigor to the human eye. A farmer looks out at you as strong as the horse; his eye-beam is like the stroke of a staff. An eye can threaten like a loaded and levelled gun, or can insult like hissing or kicking; or, in its altered mood, by beams of kindness, it can make the heart ...
— English Prose - A Series of Related Essays for the Discussion and Practice • Frederick William Roe (edit. and select.)

... however, took up arms on the 3d of June, and declared they would not lay them down until they received the pay demanded, and were proceeding to threaten the municipal government of the city, when they were stopped by the good sense, and presence of mind of their captain, Jose Joaquim dos Santos. But though the ferment was soothed for the time, it continued to agitate not only the troops, but the people, to ...
— Journal of a Voyage to Brazil - And Residence There During Part of the Years 1821, 1822, 1823 • Maria Graham

... theories are disputing the field, and to this day we know not as to many of the most important rocks, whether they originated by the agency of fire or of water. The new and remarkable discoveries of the great Challenger-expedition threaten to subvert a great many geological notions which had long been regarded as certain. Then again, as to fossils. Who can prove with any certainty that these petrifactions are in truth the fossilised remains of extinct organisms? They may be—as many distinguished ...
— Freedom in Science and Teaching. - from the German of Ernst Haeckel • Ernst Haeckel



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



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