Dictionary

threatful en · ADJ

Pronunciation

• /ˈθɹɛtfəl/ (Received-Pronunciation)

Etymology

From threat + -ful.

Meanings

1. Threatening.
   • The sound of the gang was diminishing into the distance, and the prophet of doom, restored to eloquence, was sending threatful bolts of damnation, hell-fire, and a brimstone gehenna hurtling after them. 1951, John Wyndham, The Day of the Triffids, Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, published 1954, page 59:
   • Then he with all his puissance doth striue / To strike his oares, and mightily doth driue / The hollow vessell through the threatfull waue […] 1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book II, Canto XII”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC:

Forms

Deriveds

threatfulness · threatfully