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Menace   /mˈɛnəs/  /mˈɛnɪs/   Listen
Menace

verb
(past & past part. menaced; pres. part. menacing)
1.
Pose a threat to; present a danger to.  Synonyms: endanger, imperil, jeopardise, jeopardize, peril, threaten.
2.
Express a threat either by an utterance or a gesture.
3.
Act in a threatening manner.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Menace" Quotes from Famous Books



... this rash individual, was the man with the bald brow, who, a moment earlier, standing with the gypsy's group had chilled the poor girl with his words of menace and of hatred. He was dressed in an ecclesiastical costume. At the moment when he stood forth from the crowd, Gringoire, who had not noticed him up to that time, recognized him: "Hold!" he said, with an exclamation of astonishment. "Eh! 'tis my master in Hermes, Dom Claude Frollo, ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo

... and, choosing an evil part, had become a menace to the community; as Grant had said, he must go. This was unavoidable, and though the duty of getting rid of him was painful, it must be carried out. George was usually unsuspicious and of ...
— Ranching for Sylvia • Harold Bindloss

... to say, right here," he began, with a rasping leisureliness, "that I hope no member of this honoured body will take my remarks as personal or unparliamentary—but"—he raised a big forefinger and shook it with menace at the presiding officer, at the same time suddenly lifting his voice to an unprintable shriek—"I say to you, sir, that the song of the siren has been heard in the land, and the call of Delilah has been ...
— In the Arena - Stories of Political Life • Booth Tarkington

... fortification, and while their leader advanced alone and composedly across the space between the invaders and the walls of Harby, the followers were bale to note how all the windows were barricaded and loop-holed, and how full of menace the ancient ...
— The Lady of Loyalty House - A Novel • Justin Huntly McCarthy

... I never can forget Waved a wild sceptre at me, ruling yet An empire gone where all empires must go, Melting away as simply as the snow; Yet no one heeded the flower of his menace, As little heeded him as that One Face That suddenly I saw go wandering by, And saying as ...
— The Lonely Dancer and Other Poems • Richard Le Gallienne

... beach as hard as he could run to the Huntingdon house. By the time he reached it he was no longer the artist's only son, hedged about with many limitations which belonged to that distinction. He was "Dare-devil Dick, the Dread Destroyer," and Georgina was "Gory George, the Menace of the Main." ...
— Georgina of the Rainbows • Annie Fellows Johnston

... which is peculiar to negroes, and his mysterious, almost menacing words, consequently, sounded all the more as if they were uttered at random by a man bereft of his reason. But his looks, the looks of those pale, cold, clear blue eyes, were certainly not those of a madman. They clearly expressed menace, yes, menace, as well as irony, and, above all, implacable ferocity, and their glance was like a flash of lightning, which ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery In Four Volumes - Mystic-Humorous Stories • Various

... the German forests, and in campaign after campaign defeating the wild tribes that still remained there. The strongest of them, the Saxons, accepted an enforced Christianity. Even the vague races beyond the German borders were so harried, so weakened, that they ceased to be a serious menace. ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 4 • Various

... day (Sunday) the Prince held his triumphant entry up the High Street of Edinburgh. Clan after clan marched past, with waving plaids and brandished weapons; the wild music of the pipes sounded as full of menace as of triumph. From every window in the dark, high houses on each side, fair faces looked down, each adorned with the white cockade. In their excitement the Highlanders let off their pieces into the air. By an unfortunate accident one musket thus fired happened ...
— The Red True Story Book • Various

... upon the grave. So thoroughly are his tastes those of the civilised modern man that if it had not been for the fire in him of justice and anger he might have been the most trim and modern among the millions whom he shocks: and his bicycle and brown hat have been no menace in Brixton. But God sent among those suburbans one who was a prophet as well as a sanitary inspector. He had every qualification for living in a villa—except the necessary indifference to his brethren living in pigstyes. But for the small ...
— George Bernard Shaw • Gilbert K. Chesterton

... city the glory of having been the capital of the great empire founded by the Akkadian dynasties. The actual sway of Babylon, though arrested to the south by the petty states of Lower Chaldaea, had not encountered to the north or north-west any enemy to menace seriously its progress in that semi-fabulous period of its history. The vast plain extending between the Euphrates and the Tigris is as it were a continuation of the Arabian desert, and is composed of a grey, or in parts a whitish, soil impregnated with selenite ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 4 (of 12) • G. Maspero

... powerful and dangerous of tropic beasts of prey. It is swift enough to capture horses on the open pampas and strong enough to drag them away after the kill. In some of the countries south of the Isthmus the jaguar is a menace to the inhabitants, and settlements have been deserted because of them. It is rarely that one is found as ...
— Boy Scouts in the Canal Zone - The Plot Against Uncle Sam • G. Harvey Ralphson

... man said in a silken tone that gloved grimmest menace, "is much the same as yours—quite naturally—but more fortunate; for I shall get not only what I came for, ...
— Red Masquerade • Louis Joseph Vance

... natheles the emperour and alle the Tarterynes beleeven in God immortalle. And whan thei wille manacen ony man thanne thei seyn, God knowethe wel, that I schalle do the suche a thing, and tellethe his menace. And thus have zee herd, whi he is clept the ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries - of the English Nation. v. 8 - Asia, Part I. • Richard Hakluyt

... a fool of yourself, Archie," said he, in a low distinct voice, in which was a subdued ring of menace. "It's all right. You're my best man, you know. You are to sign your name as one of the witnesses of ...
— Archibald Malmaison • Julian Hawthorne

... came in and a hiccup became a mark of affluence instead of a social error, as formerly, and a loaded flank is a sign of hospitality rather than of menace, things may have changed. I am speaking, though, of the damper early nineties in Kentucky, when a sudden motion toward the right hip pocket was a threat and not a promise, as at present. So, what with first one thing and then another, ...
— One Third Off • Irvin S. Cobb

... Madame, you are bearing arms not against this kingdom, but against Austria, since from to-day this land becomes the property of the imperial crown. If you struggle, it will be futilely. For, by this move of yours, Austria will declare that this kingdom is a menace to the tranquility of the confederation. Madame, there is no corner-stone to your edifice. This is what I wished to say to you. I have done. ...
— The Puppet Crown • Harold MacGrath

... flaming red. He lurched from the shock of this explosion, but he made a mad rush for the house, which he viewed as a man submerged to the neck in a boiling surf might view the shore. In the air, little pieces of shell howled and the earthquake explosions drove him insane with the menace of their roar. As he ran the canteens knocked together with ...
— The Little Regiment - And Other Episodes of the American Civil War • Stephen Crane

... war of the Revolution following the Declaration of Independence, the half a million of slaves, nearly all of them in the Southern States, were found to be not only a source of weakness, but, through the incitements of British emissaries, a standing menace of peril to the Slaveholders. Thus it was that the South was overrun by hostile British armies, while in the North-comparatively free of this element of weakness—disaster after disaster met them. At last, however, in 1782, came the recognition ...
— The Great Conspiracy, Complete • John Alexander Logan

... irregular motion, it became evident that instead of desiring to remain by the fallen body of its victim, it was doing its very best to get away from it! This was all the more easily believed, when it commenced uttering a series of wild screams; not as before indicating rage or menace, but in tones expressive ...
— The Cliff Climbers - A Sequel to "The Plant Hunters" • Captain Mayne Reid

... to the dining-room, imperceptibly smiling. At the door the sight of his wife halted him. The face of that precious and adorable woman flamed out lightning and all menace and offence. Her louring eyes showed what a triumph of dissimulation she must have achieved in the presence of Mr. Duncalf, but now she ...
— Tales of the Five Towns • Arnold Bennett

... "Thou hast said enough." I feared lest again he should reproach her of whose sweetness I had naught but a gift of the blue eyes that must have met his with menace. I saw, as his hands shook, tapping the floor with his cane, how great were both ...
— Hugh Wynne, Free Quaker • S. Weir Mitchell

... accompaniments of the end chosen. But there may also be entailed shattered health, overwhelming anxieties, and the distress of seeing one's sons, brought up in luxury and without incentive to effort, victims to the dangers which menace the idle rich. ...
— A Handbook of Ethical Theory • George Stuart Fullerton

... a sign of people's affections," Mr. Budlong thundered. "It has become a public menace. It's worse than Wall Street. Wall Street is supposed have started as the thermometer of the country's business and now it's gone and got so goldum big that the thermometer is makin' the weather. When Wall Street feels muggy it's got to rain and the sun don't dare shine without ...
— Mrs. Budlong's Chrismas Presents • Rupert Hughes

... he would need to convince people of the truth of his tale. But in the meantime he allowed himself to admire the clipping of the newspaper ad he had run in all the Los Angeles papers for the past week. The little ad that had saved mankind from God-knew-what insidious menace. It read: ...
— The Perfectionists • Arnold Castle

... fort on the Appalachicola, about fifteen miles above its mouth, with a large amount of arms and ammunition. This fort the fugitive negroes seized and held for about three years as a refuge for escaped slaves, and, consequently, as a menace to slavery. It was during this time called "Negro Fort." At the instigation of slave owners, it was attacked by General Gaines of the ...
— Slavery and Four Years of War, Vol. 1-2 • Joseph Warren Keifer

... standing were the feigned caresses and endearments Del Mar lavished on him. He knew the cold-blooded insincerity of them, for, at night, when he was brought to Del Mar's room, he heard only the cold brittle tones, sensed only the threat and the menace of the other's personality, felt, when touched by the other's hand, only a stiffness and sharpness of contact that was like to so much steel or wood in so far as all subtle tenderness of heart and ...
— Michael, Brother of Jerry • Jack London

... those whom they were unable to convince. Suddenly, at their secret instigation, the army, rising from its cantonments in the neighbourhood of Nottingham, approached the metropolis, and selected quarters in the county of Essex. This movement was regarded and resented as a menace: Fairfax, to excuse it, alleged the difficulty of procuring subsistence in an exhausted and impoverished district.[a] At Saffron Walden he was met by the parliamentary commissioners, who called a council of ...
— The History of England from the First Invasion by the Romans - to the Accession of King George the Fifth - Volume 8 • John Lingard and Hilaire Belloc

... Ross's father, had the famine to cope with and survived it; but of the second convulsion from which emerged the Ireland of to-day he saw only the beginning, for he died in 1873, when the organised peasant uprising was at most a menace. But his wife knew both periods—the bad times of the late 'forties and the bad times of the early eighties. The true link with the past for the writers of Irish Memories is through the female line. This ...
— Irish Books and Irish People • Stephen Gwynn

... hanging there last night when he dropped asleep: to that he could take his oath. He had supposed it to be left behind in the armoire at Boisveyrac. For a full minute he sat on the bed's edge gazing at it in sheer dismay, its evil menace closing like ...
— Fort Amity • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... and his last blessing. While saying this he was moving forward on his knees, and speaking with an intense passion. In the sound of this voice, uttering words of extravagant humility, there seemed to be insult and a menace. As he continued moving nearer to my father, and as the idea of the foul caresses which he apparently wished to lavish on him filled me with disgust, I ordered him in a somewhat imperious tone to rise and speak becomingly. My father ...
— Mauprat • George Sand

... mooring-lines of the Brutus, and with a boat-book gave her a shove which carried her out into the middle of the river. She went bobbing away gently on the ebb-tide, bound for the deep water out in the Bight of Tyee where, when she settled, she would be hidden forever and not be a menace to navigation. Mr. Daney watched her until she disappeared in the dim starlight before returning to his home and so, like Mr. Pepys, to bed, where he had the first real sleep in weeks. He realized this in the morning and marveled at it, for he had ...
— Kindred of the Dust • Peter B. Kyne

... the sea. A moment and they had passed over the broken line of Austrian battleships, and sped on toward the French fleet. The French perceived the menace, and their special quick-firers, elevated for aeroplane defense, ...
— The Boy Allies Under Two Flags • Ensign Robert L. Drake

... ejected should teach in schools, preach publicly or privately, celebrate baptism or marriage, or use the Book of Common Prayer, under pain of being prosecuted. The Ordinance seems to have been issued merely as part and parcel of that almost ostentatious menace of severities against the Royalists by which Cromwell sought at that particular time to terrify them into submission and prevent farther plottings. At all events, it was announced in the Ordinance itself that there would be great delicacy in the application ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson

... head. The sun was red, but the wrong red: an angry red: and, as he dipped into the wave, discharged a lurid coppery hue that rushed in a moment like an embodied menace over the entire heavens. The wind ceased altogether: and in the middle of an unnatural and suspicious calm the glass went ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade

... perhaps the best illustration of such perversion. This was seen and pointed out long ago by Horace Mann (R. 281). There the idea of nationality through education (R. 342) was carried to such an extreme as made the government oppressive to subject peoples and a menace to neighboring States. [24] On the other hand, the French have used their schools for national ends (R. 341) in a manner ...
— THE HISTORY OF EDUCATION • ELLWOOD P. CUBBERLEY

... that I am the Master Magician and have power to destroy you instantly?" shouted Curling Smoke, lifting his huge hand in menace. ...
— The Shadow Witch • Gertrude Crownfield

... of communication, transportation, manufacturing, &c., since Rome's day would give Germany, in the case of such an eventuation, a power which would have been inconceivable to the most ambitious Roman Emperor. It would make her a menace not only to her immediate neighbors, but ...
— The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol. 1, January 9, 1915 - What Americans Say to Europe • Various

... whispered audibly in my ear, 'No!' 'Is that so?' I asked confused, and drew back a step before the figure, who with a look cold and lifeless as though from eyes of marble, seated herself once more on the stool behind her; 'from what quarter does danger menace my house?' The woman, taking a piece of charcoal and a paper in her hand and crossing her knees, asked whether she should write it down for me; and as I, really embarrassed, though only because under the existing circumstances there was nothing else for me to do, answered, ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IV • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke

... Staffs had for some years been in close secret consultation with one another on this subject. The German menace necessitated some preliminary understanding in the event of a sudden attack. The area of concentration for the British Forces had been fixed on the left flank of the French, and the actual detraining stations of the various units were all laid down ...
— 1914 • John French, Viscount of Ypres

... boys, like all scouts. Though studying the arts of peace rather than those of cruel war, love of country was a cardinal virtue held up constantly before their eyes by Lieutenant Denmead. Should danger of any type menace the defenders of the flag, boys like these would be among the first to want to enlist. The Boy Scout movement was never intended to discourage a love of country. And if war ever does come to the land we all love, thousands of those who rally to her defense will be found ...
— The Boy Scouts of the Flying Squadron • Robert Shaler

... They do not menace me. I could have faced, Methinks, a Sylla's menace; but they clasp, And raise, and wring their dim and deathlike hands, And with their thin aspen faces and fixed eyes Fascinate mine. ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron

... any Western State, it would always be confronted with a contrary principle in the relation of that State to dependencies, and this contradiction, as may easily be seen by the attentive student of our own political constitutions, is a standing menace to domestic freedom. The awakening of the Orient, from Constantinople to Pekin, is the greatest and most hopeful political fact of our time, and it is with the deepest shame that English Liberals have been compelled to look on while our Foreign Office has made itself ...
— Liberalism • L. T. Hobhouse

... Stephen van der Hagen, who had sailed at the end of 1603, had been doing much thorough work. A firm league had been made with one of the chief potentates of Malabar, enabling them to build forts and establish colonies in perpetual menace of Goa, the great oriental capital of the Portuguese. The return of the ambassadors sent out from Astgen to Holland had filled not only the island of Sumatra but the Moluccas, and all the adjacent regions, with praises of the power, wealth, and high civilization ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... rest. Through the interstices the dim brightness of the moon misted in, and the multitudinous rays from the hotel. There reached them the murmur of voices, the languorous lap of water. A serene and reassuring scene it surely was; there was no menace in the night's silvern calmness, no shadow of ...
— V. V.'s Eyes • Henry Sydnor Harrison

... the June meadows and hobnob with the bobolinks; to saunter in the hemlocks in quest of old friends in the tree-tops; and—yes, truth compels me to confess—to sit in the fields with rifle in hand and wage war against the burrowing woodchuck which is such a menace to the clover and vegetables of ...
— Our Friend John Burroughs • Clara Barrus

... personal character of these enterprises led to the perpetuation and multiplication of private and personal interests, and thus to the endless divisions and feuds between the barons of the kingdom, which were a constant scandal and menace and which led frequently to deliberate treachery. It encouraged, or permitted, or was compelled to tolerate the growth of societies which arrogated to themselves an independent jurisdiction, and thus rendered impossible a central authority of sufficient coercive power. The origin of ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume VI. • Various

... ambassadorial presence. Ascendency was native to the man; while yet in his teens we find Etonian and Cambridge friends writing to him deferentially as to a critic and superior. At four and twenty he became Minister to a Court manageable only by high-handed authority and menace. He owned, and for the most part controlled, a violent temper; it broke bounds sometimes, to our great amusement as we read to-day, to the occasional discomfiture of attaches or of dependents, {19} to the abject ...
— Biographical Study of A. W. Kinglake • Rev. W. Tuckwell

... countries with which France is at war, and who had not constantly resided there since 1789.—This intelligence, as you will conceive, sufficiently alarmed me, and I lost no time in consulting Mad. de 's friends on the subject, who were generally of opinion that the decree was merely a menace, and that it was too unjust to be put in execution. As some days elapsed and no steps were taken in consequence, I began to think they were right, and my spirits were somewhat revived; when one evening, as I was preparing to go to bed, my maid suddenly entered the room, ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady

... first place, we are to engage in an attempt to shake off the pirate; for she is not only a nuisance, but a constant menace to certain members ...
— Asiatic Breezes - Students on The Wing • Oliver Optic

... Austrian barons forcibly entered his chamber, and inveighing against him with loud and bitter reproaches, endeavoured to force him into a confederation with the Bohemians. One of them, seizing him by the button of his doublet, demanded, in a tone of menace, "Ferdinand, wilt ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller

... elements: within narrower limits new discords break out, which once more threaten a complete overthrow: until, thanks to the indifference shown by England to continental events, the most formidable dangers arise to threaten the equilibrium of Europe, and even menace England itself. These European emergencies coinciding with the troubles at home bring about a new change of the old forms in the Revolution of 1688, the main result of which is, that the centre of gravity of public authority in England shifts ...
— A History of England Principally in the Seventeenth Century, Volume I (of 6) • Leopold von Ranke

... awaited Napoleon at Paris. Falling in with Barras, a member of the Convention which ruled France at this time, he learned that the feeling for the restoration of the monarchy was daily growing stronger, and that the royalists of Paris were a great menace to the Convention. ...
— Mr. Bonaparte of Corsica • John Kendrick Bangs

... damage, he had two wounds newly received in his own person), "Thou shalt not die, Betis, as thou dost intend; be sure thou shall suffer all the torments that can be inflicted on a captive." To which menace the other returning no other answer, but only a fierce and disdainful look; "What," says Alexander, observing his haughty and obstinate silence, "is he too stiff to bend a knee! Is he too proud to utter one suppliant word! Truly, I will conquer this silence; and if I cannot ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne

... was plunged into the heart of Marat in July; Marie Antoinette, the grey discrowned Queen of thirty-eight, mounted the scaffold in October. The guillotine was very busy, and France was frantic amid internal disruption and the menace of a ring ...
— The Life of Captain Matthew Flinders • Ernest Scott

... friendships on good comradeship, not on maudlin emotion, nor on propinquity. The right kind of girl and boy friendships may give joy for a lifetime; the wrong kind must be a continual menace. ...
— Manners And Conduct In School And Out • Anonymous

... know exactly what to do," she complained. "I don't know whether to treat Mrs. Denby as a bereaved aunt, a non-existent family skeleton, or a released menace. I dare say now, pretty soon, she and your uncle will be married. Meanwhile, I suppose it is rather silly of me not to call and see if I can help her in any way. After all, we do know her intimately, whether we want to or not, don't we? We meet ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1920 • Various

... water would permit, the five steamers loaded with troops closely following her and making as though it was their intention to land the troops upon a small promontory jutting out into the head of the bay. This was a distinct menace to the Japanese left, and although it might be merely a demonstration, it was imperative to meet it, or it might develop into a serious and most embarrassing attack; therefore, badly as it could be spared from ...
— Under the Ensign of the Rising Sun - A Story of the Russo-Japanese War • Harry Collingwood

... the Florida seas for the thousands of kinds of rare fish and water creatures that abound there. The Florida waters hide many strange and unknown dangers. The perils the chums encounter from weird fishes and creatures of the sea and the menace of hurricane and shipwreck, make very interesting and instructive reading. This is the sixth book of adventures of the ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely

... stake in his person, his children, or his property, must demand it of the legislature, as the only means of coming to a fair decision on all such matters. This charter election should open the eyes of the honourable of all parties to the dangers that menace us, and a ...
— Diary in America, Series Two • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)

... that the use of the troops for such purposes was unconstitutional; that the intimidation was only imaginary, or could be readily controlled by the local authorities; and that the presence of the military provoked violence and was a constant insult and menace to the States. President Jackson, as we have seen (p. 175), introduced into our politics the principle of "rotation in office." This policy steadily gained favor until Marcy's maxim, "To the victors belong the spoils," became the commonly-accepted view; and after ...
— A Brief History of the United States • Barnes & Co.

... For once you are mistaken in your man. The deed you wot of shall forthwith be done, A bird let loose, a secret out of hand, Returns not back. Why, then 'tis baby policy To menace him who hath it in his keeping. I will go look for Gray; Then, northward ho! such tricks as we shall play Have not been seen, I think, in merry Sherwood, Since the days of ...
— The Works of Charles Lamb in Four Volumes, Volume 4 • Charles Lamb

... on the instant ceased talking and stared; but without changing their attitudes, which were clearly those of two disputants. They stood perhaps four paces apart. Both were young men, and the one whose attitude most suggested menace I recognised as a young lieutenant of a line regiment (the 102nd) whom I had shaved that morning. The other wore the uniform of a staff officer, and at the first glance I read a touch of superciliousness ...
— The Laird's Luck • Arthur Quiller-Couch

... and nothing more, with no apparent objects except to secure supplies, and, while so engaged, to insure their own safety from molestation by occupying positions of command, which facilitated their defence and—by menace or otherwise—imposed obstacles upon the movements of the British. A certain amount of outpost skirmishing of course occurred, and on the night of the 22nd some 4,000 British, under General Hildyard, moved, by way of Willow Grange, to attack Beacon Hill, which ...
— Story of the War in South Africa - 1899-1900 • Alfred T. Mahan

... harm me, use me for his gambling lure, or kill me," she murmured. And her prevision of salvation contended with the dark menace of the hour. But, as always, she rose ...
— The U.P. Trail • Zane Grey

... some time before the operation was complete, and even then Mr Durfy's powers of speech had not returned. With a malignant scowl he stepped up to his enemy and hissed the one menace,— ...
— Reginald Cruden - A Tale of City Life • Talbot Baines Reed

... room and darkness. Lights, music, the scent of dying flowers, laughter, men, all had become abhorrent. Something within her lay bruised and stunned; and, as never before, the vast and terrible phantom of her loneliness rose like a nightmare to menace her. ...
— The Danger Mark • Robert W. Chambers

... curtain aside with one hand and looks out. As he gazes his face grows sterner, and he lifts his hand above his head in menace. LAVARCAM looks on with terror, and as he drops the curtain and looks back on her, she lets her face ...
— Imaginations and Reveries • (A.E.) George William Russell

... something of effort to chase away the boding sadness which settles unavoidably upon any new career; the promise is vague, but new hopes have created new dangers, and responsibilities contracted perhaps with rapture are charged with menace. ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. 1 (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey

... staplers who were in those days to be found directing the destinies of English towns, mayors of London and provincial ports, contractors and moneylenders to an impecunious king, so rich and so powerful that they became a constitutional menace, almost, it has been said, a fourth estate of the realm, with which His Majesty was wont to treat for grants apart from Parliament. Many are the staplers' wills preserved in registries up and down England and bearing witness to ...
— Medieval People • Eileen Edna Power

... the French, on account of this affair, were menaced by eight hundred savages of different nations who were assembled at Trois Rivieres. Vide Histoire du Canada, 1636, Vol. I. p.42. The statement, "on estoit menace de huict cens Sauvages de diuerse nations, qui festoient assemblez es Trois Rivieres a dessein de venir surprendre les Francois & leur coupper a tous la gorge, pour preuenir la vengeance qu'ils eussent pu prendre de deux de leurs hommes tuez par les Montagnais environ la my Auril de l'an 1617," ...
— Voyages of Samuel de Champlain V3 • Samuel de Champlain

... judge, whose name was to become England's infamy; Queen Catherine of Braganza, keeping up hollow mirth with those whose presence was insult; the Duke of York, soberer than his royal brother, the king, since Monmouth's menace to the succession; and a host of hangers-on ready to swear away England's liberties for a licking of the crumbs ...
— Heralds of Empire - Being the Story of One Ramsay Stanhope, Lieutenant to Pierre Radisson in the Northern Fur Trade • Agnes C. Laut

... state of things encouraged a general native rising, and was a menace to the safety of all the whites in South Africa. The Cape Government watched the situation with anxiety, and at length the British Government intervened, and on 12th April 1877 proclaimed the Transvaal to be annexed ...
— Our Sailors - Gallant Deeds of the British Navy during Victoria's Reign • W.H.G. Kingston

... country. They posted a guard, to give notice of any movement, and when an attempt was made, it was interrupted by the loud screams of the women, and the entreaties of the men. They resisted the intrusion with displeasure, and even menace. ...
— The History of Tasmania , Volume II (of 2) • John West

... a hint of menace as it issued forth the signal was answered this time, and with a thrill of wonder the mantle of the old life fell upon Michael once more. He was Mikky—only grown more wise. Almost the old vernacular ...
— Lo, Michael! • Grace Livingston Hill

... true island and had an easily controlled dry land isthmus connection with the mainland. As the river narrows here, it was one of the best control points on the James. It had been abandoned by the Indians; and it was a bit inland, hence somewhat out of range of the Spanish menace. Arable land on the Island was limited by inlets and "guts." The marshes bred in abundance, even the deadly mosquitoes whose forebears had been brought from the West Indies in the colonists' own vessels; and, with ...
— The First Seventeen Years: Virginia 1607-1624 • Charles E. Hatch

... are, and so am I—not on the moral side, nor is it the moral aspect that troubles Lula Dickinson. She thinks it's the moral aspect, but it's really the revolutionary aspect, the menace to those precious institutions from which we derive ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... talents could be applied in some other direction. I shall have to remonstrate with him if he becomes troublesome." "It is your duty to society, Thorndyke," I exclaimed passionately, "to have this infernal, cold-blooded scoundrel arrested instantly. Such a man is a standing menace to the community. Do you really know ...
— The Red Thumb Mark • R. Austin Freeman

... contemplating one another with intense eyes, as if they had been looking with effort across immense distances. Kayerts shivered. Makola had meant no more than he said, but his words seemed to Kayerts full of ominous menace! He turned sharply and went away to the house. Makola retired into the bosom of his family; and the tusks, left lying before the store, looked very large and valuable in ...
— Tales of Unrest • Joseph Conrad

... theocracy must be considered to have established their proposition. But if, on the other hand, it shall seem apparent that the intense vindictiveness of this onslaught was due to the bigotry and greed of power of a despotic priesthood, who saw in the spread of independent thought a menace to the ascendency of their order, then it must be held to be demonstrated that the clergy of New England acted in obedience to those natural laws, which have always ...
— The Emancipation of Massachusetts • Brooks Adams

... tramps had made the men suspicious, and it may be they disliked having their proceedings watched by anybody; but, happily for Clare, it was the master himself who came up to him, not without something of menace in his bearing. The boy was never afraid, and hope started up full grown as the man approached. He rose and took off his cap—a very ready action with Clare, which sprung from pure politeness, and from nothing either selfish or cringing. But the man ...
— A Rough Shaking • George MacDonald

... Spaniards seemed to grow in favor, formed themselves into a great republican league,—a State within the State,—regularly organised in peace for political effort, and in war for military effort,—with a Protestant clerical caste which ruled always with pride, and often with menace. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 55, May, 1862 • Various

... possession of that lovely body, and those marvels of love. Kill me then!" And again he attacked the royal preserves. The young beauty, whose head was full of the king, was not even touched by this great love, said gravely, "If you menace me further, it is not you but myself I will kill." She glared at him so savagely that the poor man was quite terrified, and commenced to deplore the evil hour in which he had taken her to wife, and ...
— Droll Stories, Complete - Collected From The Abbeys Of Touraine • Honore de Balzac

... a little sputtering roar. Nagger snorted. "Wildfire!" exclaimed Slone. That word was a favorite one with riders, and now Slone used it both to call out his menace to the stallion and to express his feeling for ...
— The Boy Scouts Book of Campfire Stories • Various

... and put out his head. There were both weight and menace in the wind which hooted past his ears. The fog was gone, but the night was black, without glimmer of stars. The white crests of the waves which galloped alongside flaked the ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day

... step backward at the menace in the lad's tone; but the other French officers now gathered about, and these reenforcements ...
— The Boy Allies in the Trenches - Midst Shot and Shell Along the Aisne • Clair Wallace Hayes

... any more easily than the oracles of Dodona. Even in Germany there are dreadful discontents in view of the imperialism which Bismarck, by the force of successful wars, has seemingly revived. The awful standing armies are a menace to all liberty and progress and national development. In Italy itself there is the commencement of constitutional authority, although it is united under a king. The great standing warfare of modern ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume V • John Lord

... of two things happens. Either the customer is obdurate, and staggers to his feet at last and gropes his way out of the shop with the knowledge that he is a wrinkled, prematurely senile man, whose wicked life is stamped upon his face, and whose unstopped hair-ends and failing follicles menace him with the certainty of complete baldness within twenty-four hours—or else, as in nearly all instances, he succumbs. In the latter case, immediately on his saying "yes" there is a shout of exultation from the barber, a roar of steaming water, and within a moment two barbers ...
— Literary Lapses • Stephen Leacock

... social service to his fellows. The spontaneous tenderness which he put into his contact with the sick was an expression of his sense of the sacredness of life. A leper with fingerless hands and decaying joints was repulsive to the aesthetic feelings and a menace to selfish fear of infection. The community quarantined the lepers in waste places by stoning them when they crossed bounds. (Remember Ben Hur's mother and sister.) Jesus not only healed this man, but his sense of humanity so went out to him that "he stretched forth his hand and ...
— The Social Principles of Jesus • Walter Rauschenbusch

... Common.—What we have is neither the complete monopoly nor the merely formal one, but one that has power enough to work injury and to be a menace to industry and politics. If it long perverts industry, it will be because it perverts politics—because it baffles the people in their effort to make and enforce laws which would keep the power of competition alive. In terms of our table the subgroups are coming to resemble single overgrown corporations. ...
— Essentials of Economic Theory - As Applied to Modern Problems of Industry and Public Policy • John Bates Clark

... they like you now? Say, say, do you think they like you now?" But the tone with which he addressed me this time had a ring of menace in it, and I was not surprised to see Dwight Pollard start, though I was somewhat affected by the deep agitation he showed as I tried ...
— The Mill Mystery • Anna Katharine Green

... down on her with her steady gaze, a gaze that was a menace and an appeal, and Rhoda gave a little gasp ...
— Superseded • May Sinclair

... witchfinder, lifting up his long right arm with a gesture of menace. "Those who defend the evil-doer, and malign the just and heaven-directed accuser, are not far from being arraigned as ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 347, September, 1844 • Various

... could see that, as was but natural, the man did not share the indifference so superbly shown by the soldiers; his face was dark and sullen, and the glances he occasionally cast at his persecutors were full of menace; the very timid ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace

... common cause to protect the images in imperial Italy. Gregory III excommunicated the iconoclasts (731); the Lombard King Aistulf seized Ravenna, the last important stronghold of the Byzantines in the peninsula (751). Too late the Papacy realised that the orthodox Lombard was a greater menace than the Greek heretic. Aistulf regarded Rome, in common with the other territories of the Empire, as his rightful spoil. For the first time the issue was raised between secular statesmanship scheming for Italian unity and a Roman bishop claiming sovereign power as the historical and indispensable ...
— Medieval Europe • H. W. C. Davis

... Tarim basin, but whether as effect or cause it is hard to say. The persecution may have had a political motive: Lang-dar-ma may have thought that the rise of monastic corporations, and their right to own land and levy taxes were a menace to unity and military efficiency. But the political confusion which followed on his death was not due to the triumphant restoration of Lamaism. Its recovery was slow. The interval during which Buddhism almost ...
— Hinduism and Buddhism, An Historical Sketch, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Charles Eliot

... and humanitarians must return to the attack, for individual carelessness becomes community menace, and "line upon line and precept upon precept" they must present their knowledge in language that shall attract and hold the attention and fancy. So the work and discoveries of Metchnikoff have gained credence because the disciple who described them ...
— Euthenics, the science of controllable environment • Ellen H. Richards

... test in 1902. A strike of the anthracite coal miners, which started in the summer, ran late into the autumn. Industries were paralyzed for the want of coal; cities were threatened with the appalling menace of a winter without heat. Governors and mayors were powerless and appealed for aid. The mine owners rejected the demands of the men and refused to permit the arbitration of the points in dispute, although ...
— History of the United States • Charles A. Beard and Mary R. Beard

... an air of menace at the dusky horizon, at the wide empurpled stretch of eastern sky that stood for Prussia in his eyes. No one spoke; they heard the strains of retreat again, but very distant now, away at the extreme end of the camp, blended and lost among the ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola

... waves began to swell. And, through the menace of the thunder-roll, The thin quick lightnings, ...
— Collected Poems - Volume Two (of 2) • Alfred Noyes

... human life in the expanding horizon of man's usefulness to man, is forever menaced by the supernaturalism of the theist which manifests itself in the multifarious religious sects that are the most active and constant menace to civilization and to mankind today. That religion in the past has produced suffering incalculable and has been the greatest obstacle in the advance of secular knowledge is a fact too well attested to by history ...
— The Necessity of Atheism • Dr. D.M. Brooks

... Roaring Water Portage. By night on the day following the arrival of the mail from Maxokama, the water was coming down the rapids with a roar, bringing great lumps of ice with it, which crashed to fragments on the rocks, or were washed down with the current to be a menace to the shipping anchored in the river below. All day long, heedless of the pouring rain, the men had worked at getting the boats free from their winter coating of ice and snow. So when night came, everyone was too thoroughly wet and tired to think ...
— A Countess from Canada - A Story of Life in the Backwoods • Bessie Marchant

... the eternal menace that she had always to dread.... But how many times had he promised that she should have no unknown husband, imposed by tradition! How many times had she indulged dreams of ...
— The Fortieth Door • Mary Hastings Bradley

... Constitutions. Nor are they satisfied with this. There is no doubt that an effort will be made to secure the repeal of the Fifteenth Amendment, and thus forestall the development of the wealthy and educated Negro, whom the South seems to anticipate as a greater menace than the ignorant ex-slave. However improbable this repeal may seem, it is not a subject to be lightly dismissed; for it is within the power of the white people of the nation to do whatever they wish in the premises—they did it once; they ...
— The Negro Problem • Booker T. Washington, et al.

... concessions made for me, nor do I ask my friends to sacrifice their ideals for me. I too have ideals which I shall always hold. All that I desire—and I claim it as my right—is the freedom to exercise this divine gift of loving, which is not a menace to society nor a disgrace to me. Let it once be understood that the average invert is not a moral degenerate nor a mental degenerate, but simply a man or a woman who is less highly specialized, less completely differentiated, ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 2 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis

... older men now, the last classes of the reservists. Every night, too, the city was dark save for the searchlights that played incessantly from the high buildings and from the Eiffel Tower. For now there was a new menace. The Germans fought not on land alone, but in the air. At any time a German might appear, thousands of feet above the city, prepared to rain down death and destruction from ...
— The Boy Scouts on the Trail • George Durston

... waiting for thee since early morn, my son," said Jerome, breaking the silence. The tone of the speaker's voice was cold, hard, and threatening. The menace in it stung Windybank ...
— Sea-Dogs All! - A Tale of Forest and Sea • Tom Bevan

... Thus in New England, in those sections of the district where many farmsteads have of late years been deserted, the cats have remained about their ancient haunts and have become entirely wild. In this State they are bred in such numbers that their presence is now a serious menace to the birds and other weaker creatures of the country. The behavior of these feralized animals differs somewhat from that of creatures which have never been tamed. They have not the same ...
— Domesticated Animals - Their Relation to Man and to his Advancement in Civilization • Nathaniel Southgate Shaler

... from a group of highly excited and indignant purchasers of stock in the Desert Scorpion Company, that promotion in which Professor Mallow had assisted on the morning of Gray's arrival. These stockholders swarmed into the office, bringing with them an air of angry menace; they were noisy; ...
— Flowing Gold • Rex Beach

... under a fair blue sky. Great blue hills confined the swollen current. This was not the Yangtze of yesterday. It was a maddened millrace, gorged by the mountain rains. Even the gurgle under the sharp-cut waters seemed to convey a menace. ...
— Peter the Brazen - A Mystery Story of Modern China • George F. Worts

... was full of gloom and menace to the industrial rivals. For the passions of the slave power were taking on an ominously violent and reckless energy of expression, which, unless all signs fail, would take on presently a no less violent and reckless energy of action. The crisis ...
— Modern Industrialism and the Negroes of the United States - The American Negro Academy, Occasional Papers No. 12 • Archibald H. Grimke

... tint, in sound, Of engineering might, mechanic skill, That checks your genius, and what thwarts your will? Winged Wit is at your side, your cherished guest, Who quits you never on an alien quest. But what that mystic prism shadows forth Hath menace which auxiliar from the North May scarce avert. The scales of Justice tilt Something askew. The curse of high-placed guilt Is on you, if the warning tocsin's knell, Clanging forth fiercely, hath ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, April 29, 1893 • Various

... with a small yard in front. Shade and ornamental trees were not in much repute. All around lay the "boundless contiguity of shade;" but it awakened no poetic sentiment. To them it had been a standing menace, which had cost the expenditure of their best energies, year after year, to push further and further back. The time had not come for ornamenting their grounds and fields with shrubs and trees, unless ...
— Life in Canada Fifty Years Ago • Canniff Haight

... these events with sarcastic interest and effective criticism, till in 1872 he was able to liken the great Liberal, Government to "a range of exhausted volcanoes," and to say of its eminent leader that he "alternated between a menace and a sigh." In 1873 Gladstone introduced a wholly unworkable Bill for the reform of University education in Ireland. It pleased no one, and was defeated on the Second Reading. Gladstone resigned. The Queen sent for Disraeli; but Disraeli declined to repeat the ...
— Prime Ministers and Some Others - A Book of Reminiscences • George W. E. Russell

... guarding some dreadful secret of the past. Twisted, distorted, and bent, with hairy, moss-grown trunks from which the decaying bark peeled like the mouldering cement on some old and forgotten ruin, the kings of the forest stood silent and grim, their branches stretched out in grisly menace—giant arms that threatened death to all ...
— Orrain - A Romance • S. Levett-Yeats

... were busy planning how to keep possession of that weapon which had seemed to have drawn into itself every danger and menace on the death-ridden earth. She said with a low laugh, the exultation in which he ...
— Victory • Joseph Conrad

... the sarcastic serenade, the powerful duel trio, and Valentine's curse are of the highest order of expression; while the church scene, where the fiend whispers his taunts in the ear of the disgraced Marguerite, as the gloomy musical hymn and peals of the organ menace her with an irreversible doom, is a weird and thrilling picture of despair, ...
— Great Italian and French Composers • George T. Ferris

... Despite the menace to Russia contained in the British Note of May 1, 1877, there was at present little risk of a collision between the two Powers for the causes already stated. The Government of the Czar showed that it desired to keep on friendly terms with the ...
— The Development of the European Nations, 1870-1914 (5th ed.) • John Holland Rose

... moment, then leaving the two nationals, who sneaked away like whipped hounds, he went up to the young officer who commanded the cavalry, and who had been active in raising the cry of the constitution, and to him he addressed a few words with an air of stern menace; the youth evidently quailed before him, and, probably in obedience to his orders, resigned the command of the party, and rode away with a discomfited air; whereupon Quesada dismounted and walked slowly backwards and forwards before the Casa de Postas with a mien ...
— The Pocket George Borrow • George Borrow

... was the legal as well as the actual ruler of the country, and at no time in its history, as during Walker's administration, was Nicaragua governed so justly, so wisely, and so well. But in his success the neighboring republics saw a menace to their own independence. To the four other republics of Central America the five-pointed blood-red star on the flag of the filibusters bore a sinister motto: "Five or None." The meaning was only too unpleasantly obvious. At once, ...
— Real Soldiers of Fortune • Richard Harding Davis

... cut off his retreat: but the prickly cactuses were too much for them, and they were forced to follow by the path, while the brothers (Frank having somewhat regained his senses) turned every now and then to menace them: but once on the rocky path, stones began to fly fast; small ones fortunately, and wide and wild for want of light—but when they reached the pebble-beach? Both were too proud to run; but, if ever Amyas prayed in his life, he prayed for the ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley

... extended an arm, watching it curiously while the rough fabric of his sleeve was salted generously with fine white flakes. Though to some extent apprehended (they had been blind indeed to have ignored the menace of the dour day just then dying) snow had figured in their calculations as little as the scarcity of game. Amber wondered dimly if it would work a change in their plans, prove an obstacle to their safe ...
— The Bronze Bell • Louis Joseph Vance

... away up at a very tall, soldierly old man with a jagged scar across his forehead. His wide-open, black-lashed gray eyes flashed a glance like a menace, like a sword, and then suddenly smiled as if the sun had jumped from a bank of storm-clouds. And I looked into those wonderful eyes and we were friends. As fast as that. Most people would think it nonsense, but it ...
— Joy in the Morning • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews

... management of American foreign relations during this period does not enter into the scope of this book, but the fact should be noted that the anxieties of public finance were aggravated by the menace of war.* In the boundary dispute between British Guiana and Venezuela, President Cleveland proposed arbitration, but this was refused by the British Government. President Cleveland, whose foreign policy was always vigorous and decisive, then sent ...
— The Cleveland Era - A Chronicle of the New Order in Politics, Volume 44 in The - Chronicles of America Series • Henry Jones Ford

... that carried a fringe of raggedness. For the most part the men were busy with sweep and pike-pole fending off the cumbering drift and clearing the whirlpools where hidden reefs threatened destruction. There were sharp turns and angles too, where the yellow water roared into fretful and vehement menace. With night-fall the heights seemed to draw in and huddle close and the dirge of flood and wind mounted into ...
— A Pagan of the Hills • Charles Neville Buck

... darkened with time and weather stains, its massive walls, machicolated roof, and tall arched clock-tower lifted their leaden outlines against the sky, and cast a brooding shadow over the town, lying below; a grim perpetual menace to all who subsequently found themselves locked in its reformatory arms. Separated from the bustling mart and busy traffic, by the winding river that divided the little city into North and South X—, it crested an eminence on the north; and the single ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson

... transformations of energy take place. This is the hiding-place of the lightning, of the electrons which moulded together make the thunderbolt. What an underworld of mystery and power it is! In it slumbers all the might and menace of the storm, the power that rends the earth and shakes the heavens. With the mind's eye one can see the indivisible atoms giving up their electrons, see the invisible hosts, in numbers beyond the power of mathematics to compute, being summoned and marshalled ...
— The Breath of Life • John Burroughs

... a pretty hubbub in theatredom caused by a circular letter of "The Church Pastoral Aid Society," calling upon incumbents and curates to regard theatrical performances as "a serious menace to the spiritual influence of the Church," and suggesting that in future they should refuse to take money raised by means of theatrical performances, or by bazaars or whist-drives or dances. Of course, all people connected with the theatres were very indignant at ...
— Our Stage and Its Critics • "E.F.S." of "The Westminster Gazette"

... Britain had assumed with reference to the different seizures was generally considered a menace to neutral commercial interests should the British position be accepted as a precedent for similar cases that might occur. The danger of such a precedent had been realized by Secretary Hay and throughout the negotiations he had dwelt upon the fact that while the protection ...
— Neutral Rights and Obligations in the Anglo-Boer War • Robert Granville Campbell

... by repeating the words of Dr. Channing: "The greatest man," says he, "is he who chooses the right with invincible resolution, who resists the sorest temptation from within and without, who bears the heaviest burdens cheerfully, who is calmest in storms and most fearless under menace and frowns, whose reliance on truth, on virtue, on God, is most unfaltering; and is this a greatness which is apt to make a show, or which is most likely to abound in conspicuous stations? The solemn conflicts of reason with passion; ...
— Autobiography of Frank G. Allen, Minister of the Gospel - and Selections from his Writings • Frank G. Allen

... full of anxiety over a possible war with the Chinese; and the archbishop deprecates the laxity of the royal officials in allowing so many Chinese to live in the islands. They are so numerous that their presence is a menace to the Spaniards, and they are corrupting the natives with their own vicious practices. He urges that most of the Chinese be expelled from the islands, and that the conduct of the civil officials be investigated and punished. On the next day, he writes another letter to ask that ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XII, 1601-1604 • Edited by Blair and Robertson

... Unfortunately, the newspapers are full of such horrid things, yet he hardly ever pays them any attention. No, Mr. Theydon, I am not mistaken. He either knew Mrs. Lester, and was shocked at her death, or saw in it some personal menace. Then comes the letter, with its obvious threat, and I am ordered to remain at home, under a strong guard, while he hurries off to Whitehall. You have met my father, Mr. Theydon. Do you regard him as the sort of man who would rush off in a panic to consult the Home Secretary ...
— Number Seventeen • Louis Tracy

... feeling surprised at the insensibility of my fellow-traveller, who plodded on, seldom interrupting his whistling, except to cry, 'Gee, Blackbird, aw, woa;' or, 'How now, Smiler;' and certain other words or sounds of menace and encouragement, addressed to his horses in a language which seemed intelligible to them and to him, though utterly incomprehensible ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth



Words linked to "Menace" :   be, danger, evince, do, show, exist, express, yellow peril, behave, act



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