minatory

English

Etymology

Borrowed from Middle French minatoire, from Latin minatorius, from minari (to threaten).

Cognate to menace.

Adjective

minatory (comparative more minatory, superlative most minatory)

  1. Threatening, menacing.
    • 1837 Thomas Carlyle, The French Revolution: A History
      [T]he Place de Greve, with its thirty thousand Regulars, its whole irregular Saint-Antoine and Saint-Marceau, is one minatory mass of clear or rusty steel....
    • 1887: Number 3, Lauriston Gardens wore an ill-omened and minatory look. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, A Study in Scarlet
    • 1888, Henry James, The Reverberator.
      [H]er 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.
    • 1997: 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.' Edward Gorey, The Haunted Tea-Cosy
    • 1995: She shook hands firmly with Adam Dalgleish and gave him a minatory glance as if welcoming a new patient from whom she expected trouble P.D. James, The Black Tower

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