Dictionary

minatory en · ADJ

Pronunciation

• /ˈmɪn.ʌ.toɹ.i/ (Canada, General-American, Scotland, also)
• /ˈmɪn.ə.toɹ.i/ (Canada, General-American, Scotland)
• /ˈmən.ə.toːɹ.iː/ (New-Zealand)
• /ˈmɪn.ə.tɔːɹ.iː/ (Received-Pronunciation)
• (US) audio
• mĭn′ə-tôr-ē
• /ˈmɪn.ə.toːɹ.iː/ (Australia)

Etymology

Borrowed from Middle French minatoire, from Late Latin minātōrius. Compare menace.

Meanings

1. Threatening, menacing.
   • […]her father quietly addressed a few words, by letter, to George Flack. This communication was not of a minatory order; it expressed on the contrary the loose sociability which was the essence of Mr. Dosson's nature. 1888, Henry James, chapter 13, in The Reverberator, Macmillan and Co.:
   • Number 3, Lauriston Gardens wore an ill-omened and minatory look. 1887, A[rthur] Conan Doyle, “A Study in Scarlet”, in Beeton’s Christmas Annual, London; New York, N.Y.: Ward, Lock & Co., part I (Being a reprint from the reminiscences of John H. Watson, M.D., […]), chapter III (The Lauriston Gardens Mystery), page 17:
   • She shook hands firmly with Dalgliesh and gave him a minatory glance as if welcoming a new patient from whom she expected trouble. 1975, P. D. James, The Black Tower (Adam Dalgliesh; 5), New York: Faber & Faber, →ISBN, page 49:
   • In the cottage next to the post office Alma Crumble broke her wrist stirring batter, at which the Bug declared in a minatory tone that ‘That was enough of that.’ 1997 December 21, Edward Gorey, The Haunted Tea-Cosy: A Dispirited and Distasteful Diversion for Christmas, New York; San Diego; London: Harcourt Brace & Company, published 1997, →ISBN:
   • […]the Place de Grève, with its thirty thousand Regulars, its whole irregular Saint-Antoine and Saint-Marceau, is one minatory mass of clear or rusty steel;[…] 1837, Thomas Carlyle, “Usher Maillard”, in The French Revolution: A History […], volume I (The Bastille), London: Chapman and Hall, →OCLC, book VII (The Insurrection of Women), page 259:

Forms

Deriveds

minatorily

Synonyms

minatorial · ominous · sinister · minacious

Translations (7)

fr comminatoire (threatening, menacing) · mk закану́вачки (threatening, menacing) · pdt dreiwent (threatening, menacing) · hu fenyegető (threatening, menacing) · ca comminatori (threatening, menacing) · la comminātīvus (threatening, menacing) · bg заплаши́телен (threatening, menacing)