Online dictionaryOnline dictionary
Synonyms, antonyms, pronunciation

  Home
English Dictionary      examples: 'day', 'get rid of', 'New York Bay'




Menacing   /mˈɛnəsɪŋ/   Listen
Menacing

adjective
1.
Threatening or foreshadowing evil or tragic developments.  Synonyms: baleful, forbidding, minacious, minatory, ominous, sinister, threatening.  "Forbidding thunderclouds" , "His tone became menacing" , "Ominous rumblings of discontent" , "Sinister storm clouds" , "A sinister smile" , "His threatening behavior" , "Ugly black clouds" , "The situation became ugly"






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








Advanced search
     Find words:
Starting with
Ending with
Containing
Matching a pattern  

Synonyms
Antonyms
Quotes
Words linked to  

only single words



Share |
Add this dictionary
to your browser search bar





"Menacing" Quotes from Famous Books



... midnight a closely veiled lady drove up to a street corner adjacent to the city prison, a dolorous-looking building which loomed up still and menacing just ahead. She alighted and, dismissing the cab, strode off quickly into the side street. At a distant corner, in front of a crowded eating-house, two spirited horses, saddled and in charge of a grumbling stable-boy, champed noisily at ...
— The Husbands of Edith • George Barr McCutcheon

... truculent; indeed, verged almost upon the menacing. Evidently the shock had adversely affected his temper, to the point where he might make personal issues out of unavoidable trifles. Instinctively Mr. Leary felt that the situation which had ...
— The Life of the Party • Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb

... Enghien. Gassion, who as Enghien's lieutenant had the control of the movements, so arranged the marches that, while steadily approaching Rocroi, the marshal believed that he intended to force the Spaniards to fall back, rather by menacing their line of communications than by advancing ...
— Won by the Sword - A Story of the Thirty Years' War • G.A. Henty

... in which the adventurous courage of the Suliotes (together with their menacing position) could not fail to involve them, were in all eleven. The first eight of these occurred in times before the French Revolution, and with Pachas who have left no memorials behind them of the terrific energy or hellish perfidy which marked ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey

... see if he don't," thought Ben. He kept an eye on the boot-black and his patron until the job was finished. Then he witnessed what appeared to be an angry dispute between the two parties. It terminated by the gentleman lifting his cane in a menacing manner. Ben afterwards gained from the boy particulars of the transaction, which may be given ...
— Ben, the Luggage Boy; - or, Among the Wharves • Horatio Alger

... upon the little group of armed men, there was a menacing tenseness in their manner. Her mind was groping for an explanation, but she understood this much—that the law was reaching out for the devil-may-care youth who had so ...
— The Highgrader • William MacLeod Raine

... lost concern for himself, and forgot to look at a menacing fate. He became not a man but a member. He felt that something of which he was a part—a regiment, an army, a cause, or a country—was in a crisis. He was welded into a common personality which ...
— The Red Badge of Courage - An Episode of the American Civil War • Stephen Crane

... two have worked together as harmoniously as they had done at an earlier day, it would have been a blessing for the common weal of Europe. But, alas! the evil genius of jealousy, which so often forbids cordial relations between soldier and statesman, already stood shrouded in the distance, darkly menacing the strenuous patriot, who was wearing his life out in exertions for what he deemed the true cause of progress and humanity. ...
— Memoir of John Lothrop Motley, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... he shot from his upturned eyes was the fact made evident that a redoubtable nature, full of force and malignity, had just brought its quota of evil into a room already overflowing with dangerous and menacing passions. ...
— The House in the Mist • Anna Katharine Green

... was gaining ground. It was less than two weeks before election. The campaign waxed more and more bitter, and as the forces opposed to him foresaw defeat, they became ugly in spirit, and desperate. The Telegraph took on a tone more menacing and brutal, and Kittrell knew that the crisis had come. The might of the powers massed against Clayton appalled Kittrell; they thundered at him through many brazen mouths, but Clayton held on his high way unperturbed. He was speaking by day and night to thousands. Such ...
— Americans All - Stories of American Life of To-Day • Various

... says John; and finding that that but very inadequately expressed what he felt, he repeated it, with slight alteration, "My wentersome little one!" at the same time lifting his eyes to heaven and shaking his finger in a menacing way ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 121, November, 1867 • Various

... the northern shore did not seem to be so menacing. The river began to widen again and rapidly, and the scattered shots fired later on came from a great distance, falling short. Those discharged from the southern bank also missed the mark as widely. Henry no ...
— The Eyes of the Woods - A story of the Ancient Wilderness • Joseph A. Altsheler

... least know what he was afraid of. The actual Englishman whom he passed on the streets did not seem to threaten his life, yet his friendly watch and familiar suit-case seemed the only things he could trust in all the menacing world as he sat there, so vividly conscious of his fear and loneliness that he dared not move ...
— Our Mr. Wrenn - The Romantic Adventures of a Gentle Man • Sinclair Lewis

... moving thing in the whole apartment which I could attack, but unfortunately my eyes fell upon some shining brass nails which served as ornaments round the edge of a table. To my heated imagination each nail seemed glaring directly at me, menacing me like the evil eye of a bird of prey. I rushed madly toward the table, and climbing up one of its legs, I seized a nail in my beak. To my great delight I found I could easily pull it out, which I immediately did, and threw it spitefully away. With yells of ...
— Harper's Young People, November 18, 1879 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various

... exhort his people: for though he trusted in their manhood, yet as he had diuided his armie into three battels, so did he make vnto ech of them a seuerall oration, willing them not to feare the shrill and vaine menacing threats of the Britains, sith there was among them more women than men, they hauing no skill in warrelike discipline, and heereto being naked without furniture of armour, would foorthwith giue place when they should feele the sharpe points of the Romans weapons, ...
— Chronicles (1 of 6): The Historie of England (4 of 8) - The Fovrth Booke Of The Historie Of England • Raphael Holinshed

... of Northumberland, at a little distance from the land, you can just see rising up a group of little islands, rocks scattered without order, that grow in number at low water; you may count as many as twenty of them, whose sharp, menacing crests seem to defy ...
— Two Festivals • Eliza Lee Follen

... nights, and Private Cowan considered his life in danger because he caught cold; it might develop into pneumonia. He didn't want to get sick and die—not now. It had not, of late, occurred to him that he would be in any danger save from sickness. But he threw off the menacing cold and was fit for the big battle at Fismes, stubbornly pronounced "Fissims" by Private Brennon, after ...
— The Wrong Twin • Harry Leon Wilson

... this journal have we been obliged to draw upon these blockheads, and disperse them sword in hand! How, gentlemen, (we have said to them in substance,) if you must play the fool as alarmists, can you find no likelier towers for menacing Calcutta with thunder storms than those of arctic St Petersburg; between which cities lies an interspace equal to both tropics? We remember, as applicable to this case, a striking taunt reported by Dampier, that when one bucanier, on the west coast of Peru, was sailing away from the oppression ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Vol. 56, No. 346, August, 1844 • Various

... they went on together; Beneath their feet did the grass wither; Across the heaven high overhead Dark misty clouds floated and fled; 210 And in their bosom was the thunder, And angry lightnings flashed out under, Forked and red and menacing; Far off the wind was muttering; It seemed to tell, not understood, Strange secrets to ...
— Goblin Market, The Prince's Progress, and Other Poems • Christina Rossetti

... questions, and heard, in what appeared to be in the accents of the Colonies, the tale of a career of unvarying calamity. There was nothing merry or philosophic about this adventurer. Nay, there was something menacing. He eyed his companion's waterproof covetously, and declared that he had had one like it which had been stolen from him the day before. Had the place been lonely he might have contemplated highway robbery, but they were at the entrance to a village, ...
— Huntingtower • John Buchan

... but in a desire for some deeper, truer, nobler, holier insight into the will of God. It recommenced not under the auspices of a Wycliffe, not with the partial countenance of a government which was crossing swords with the Father of Catholic Christendom, and menacing the severance of England from the unity of the faith, but under a strong dynasty of undoubted Catholic loyalty, with the entire administrative power, secular as well as spiritual, in the hands of the episcopate. It sprung up spontaneously, ...
— History of England from the Fall of Wolsey to the Death of Elizabeth. Vol. II. • James Anthony Froude

... peering over the plain. They that were as pale ghosts, far off, dim like Fate, in the early part of the morning, now appeared darker, more furrowed, more sinister, more careworn; more immediately concerned with the affairs of Earth, and so more menacing ...
— Don Rodriguez - Chronicles of Shadow Valley • Edward John Moreton Drax Plunkett, Baron, Dunsany

... approached the balcony, I perceived one of the well-known agents of the Duc d'Orleans, whom I had noticed some time before in the throng, menacing me, the moment I made my appearance, with his upreared hand in fury. I was greatly terrified, but suppressed my agitation, and saluted the populace; but, fearful of exhibiting my weakness in sight of the wretch who had alarmed me, withdrew instantly, and had no sooner re-entered ...
— The Secret Memoirs of Louis XV./XVI, Complete • Madame du Hausset, an "Unknown English Girl" and the Princess Lamballe

... the second time the head appeared of unusual size, while all the other organs were excellent, and this seemed to set at rest the fear which had been caused by the former. Yet the soothsayers said that they were even more disturbed and alarmed at this; for when after very bad and menacing victims unusually excellent ones appear, the sudden change is itself ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume II • Aubrey Stewart & George Long

... acting for the whole country,—indeed, la centralisation is one of the four great evils (the others being the abuse of alcool, la pornographic, and the stationary birth-rate) which are recognized by its own citizens as menacing the nation. So that, in a general way, for both good and bad, ...
— Paris from the Earliest Period to the Present Day; Volume 1 • William Walton

... solitary hotel in Ohio, and there was fire, real fire in the air, and in his ears the echo of a shriek such as a man hears but few times in his life, even if his lot casts him continually among the reckless and the suffering. Was it hers? Had these dreams been forerunners of some menacing danger? He was on his feet, his eyes staring at the floor beneath him, through the cracks of which wisps of smoke were forcing their way up. The tavern was not only on fire, but on fire directly under him. This discovery ...
— Room Number 3 - and Other Detective Stories • Anna Katharine Green

... are some whom, when the terrible god Phthisis wishes to destroy he first makes beautiful; and the boy is one of these. His face is wax, and an awful pulchritude is born of the menacing flame in his cheeks. His eyes reflect an unearthly vista engendered by the certainty of his doom. As it is forbidden man to guess accurately concerning his fate, it is inevitable that he shall tremble at the slightest lifting ...
— Rolling Stones • O. Henry

... the hours flitted so swiftly passed my comprehension, I very cautiously climbed out of my narrow window and descended slowly to the lawns beneath. My foot had scarcely touched ground when ringing and menacing from some dark gallery of the palace above me ...
— Henry Brocken - His Travels and Adventures in the Rich, Strange, Scarce-Imaginable Regions of Romance • Walter J. de la Mare

... the likeness of certain men to certain animals, and of certain dogs to men. Now, I never looked at Rab without thinking of the great Baptist preacher, Andrew Fuller. The same large, heavy, menacing, combative, sombre, honest countenance, the same deep inevitable eye, the same look—as of thunder asleep, but ready—neither a dog nor a man to ...
— The Junior Classics Volume 8 - Animal and Nature Stories • Selected and arranged by William Patten

... without; relays are ordered. I have thy gold." (And the wretch, as he spoke, continued coldly to load his person with the rouleaus). "And now, if I spare thy life, how shall I be sure that thou wilt not inform against mine?" He advanced with a gloomy scowl and a menacing gesture ...
— Zanoni • Edward Bulwer Lytton

... bent, as Varchi says, on deceiving both the Pope and the Viceroy, replied that, if the Pope would send him two hundred thousand florins for distribution to the army, he would stay his march. But, while this answer was carried back to Rome, the tumultuous host continued its fearfully menacing advance; and the alarm in Rome was rapidly growing to desperate terror. At the Pope's earnest request, the Viceroy, "who knew well," says Varchi, "that his holiness had not a farthing," himself took post and rode hard for Florence with letters from Clement, hoping ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 9 • Various

... did ye come for, my lad?" with an emphatic nod and a menacing shake of the frail white hand, pricelessly jewelled above, comfortably black-silk-mittened below. "Tell me that now! What did ye ...
— Pearl of Pearl Island • John Oxenham

... other place, the infantry had urgent business behind the forest woods and hills. After making certain they had gone to stay, the Dupont resumed patrol duty. Cavalry afterward appeared at Fortina, but remained there only long enough to see the torpedo-boat's menacing attitude. ...
— The Boys of '98 • James Otis

... appalled. The entire canvas was one monotonous vermillion conflagration. I examined it with my head on one side, then on the other side; I made a funnel with both hands and peered intently through it at the picture. A menacing murmuring sound came ...
— Police!!! • Robert W. Chambers

... in one sense, there was—and the fair widow had noticed as well as myself—a serious, menacing expression in the man's eye not to be trifled with; and at her earnest request, we accompanied her to her own apartment, to which Renshawe had threatened soon to return. We had not been a minute in the room, when his hurried step was heard approaching, and ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 434 - Volume 17, New Series, April 24, 1852 • Various

... Wallace would attempt to creep up on Phil, whereupon the lad would start forward thrusting the torches before him and crack the whip again. Wallace was afraid of fire, and under the menacing thrusts of the torches would back cowering ...
— The Circus Boys In Dixie Land • Edgar B. P. Darlington

... externals, that he ignores the mightiness of soul that can remould externals to spiritual purposes. Were I a German, the spectacle of that solitary consumptive leaving the climate which meant life to him and hastening home to give just six months of service to his country, would be more menacing than the loss of an ...
— Out To Win - The Story of America in France • Coningsby Dawson

... and determined mood. It was in vain that a courtly minority blamed the Speaker for suffering the acts of the Queen's Highness to be called in question. The language of the discontented party was high and menacing, and was echoed by the voice of the whole nation. The coach of the chief minister of the crown was surrounded by an indignant populace, who cursed the monopolies, and exclaimed that the prerogative should not ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... of a female monkey, (the Semnopithecus Entellus), who was shot by a friend of his, and carried to his tent. Forty or fifty of her tribe advanced with menacing gestures, but stood still when the gentleman presented his gun at them. One, however, who appeared to be the chief of the tribe, came forward, chattering and threatening in a furious manner. Nothing short of firing at him seemed likely to drive him ...
— Anecdotes of the Habits and Instinct of Animals • R. Lee

... to make, winged dragons rising from a storm-whirl of waters or thereinto descending. The dragon upon the panel of the left gate has her mouth closed; the jaws of the dragon on the panel of the right gate are open and menacing. Female and male they are, like the lions of Buddha. And the whirls of the eddying water, and the crests of the billowing, stand out from the panel in astonishing boldness of relief, in loops and curlings of grey wood time-seasoned to the hardness ...
— Glimpses of an Unfamiliar Japan - First Series • Lafcadio Hearn

... fill my journal with the rambling, senseless, and menacing remarks that Hudson made to mamma, adding emphasis to his discourse by whirling a pair of very long and sharp scissors close to her eyes (he was further armed with two razors, we subsequently learnt). ...
— The Story of a Summer - Or, Journal Leaves from Chappaqua • Cecilia Cleveland

... divinities of Sinai and of Calvary with which he was acquainted were enshrined over the altars of the convents of Lebanon. He contrasted those representations without beauty or grace, so mean, and mournful, and spiritless, or if endued with attributes of power, more menacing than majestic, and morose rather than sublime, with those shapes of symmetry, those visages of immortal beauty, serene yet full of sentiment, on which he had gazed that morning with a holy rapture. The Queen had said that, besides Mount Sinai and Mount Calvary, ...
— Tancred - Or, The New Crusade • Benjamin Disraeli

... irregular design, its additions, accretions, ruins, and lapses with a harmonious charm of outline and color; poets, romancers, and historians had equally conspired to illuminate the dark passages and uglier inconsistencies of its interior life with the glamour of their own fancy. The fragment of menacing keep, with its choked oubliettes, became a bower of tender ivy; the grim story of its crimes, properly edited by a contemporary bard of the family, passed into a charming ballad. Even the superstitious darkness of its religious house had escaped through fallen roof ...
— A Phyllis of the Sierras • Bret Harte

... afterwards urged by Sir Francis that his replies to addresses were made before, and not during the election. The plea will not bear a moment's examination. The mischief was done by the inflammatory and menacing tone of the replies, and the mere question of the time of their delivery in of no importance whatever. An English writer thus effectually disposes of this attempted defence: "Surely he [Sir F. B. Head] must have some glimmering perception that ...
— The Story of the Upper Canada Rebellion, Volume 1 • John Charles Dent

... quite finished he heard the tramp of men on deck and the blast of a steam whistle. He ended his task and went up to see the gunboat, gray and menacing, its brasses glistening, men on her decks at their tasks, oblivious of the schooner, and officers on her bridge watching the progress of a ...
— A Man to His Mate • J. Allan Dunn

... intrusion into what you pretend to believe are my private affairs. I decline to confer with Belwether or Mortimer. It's enough that you are inclined to meddle—" His cold anger was stirring. He rose to his full, muscular height, slow, menacing, his long, pale fingers twisting his silky beard. "It's enough that you meddle!" he repeated. "As for the matter in question, a dozen men, including myself, heard you make a wager; and later I myself was a witness that ...
— The Fighting Chance • Robert W. Chambers

... confirmed criminal, he bore only the deepest of loathing for that class of scoundrels of which Kansas Shorty had proudly proclaimed himself a member, and his hatred of the begging class of tramps welled up in him and with a sudden movement his hand swung back to his hip pocket and glaring in a most menacing manner at Kansas Shorty he waited for further developments. Seeing that Slippery meant business, this scoundrel now took recourse in diplomacy. "Slippery, old pal," the miserable coward stammered, while at the same time his eyes followed the yegg's arm down ...
— The Trail of the Tramp • A-No. 1 (AKA Leon Ray Livingston)

... this that Cleggett waited, pressing Loge closer and closer, alert for the instant when Loge would fence wide; waxing as the other waned; menacing eyes, throat, and heart with a point that leaped and dazzled; and at the same time inclosing himself within a rampart of steel which Loge found it more and more hopeless to attempt to penetrate. It was as if Cleggett's blade were an extension of his will; he and his sword ...
— The Cruise of the Jasper B. • Don Marquis

... if I rightly remember, Mithra marks his soldiers in the forehead, with the chrism called in the Egyptian Kouphi; he celebrates the sacrifice of bread, which is the resurrection, and presents the crown to his followers, menacing them at the same ...
— The Ruins • C. F. [Constantin Francois de] Volney

... suddenly out of the Solent, caught and destroyed a pirate fleet in Mount's Bay, sent to the bottom some Flemish privateers in the Downs, and captured the Flemish admiral himself. Danger at home growing more menacing, and the monks spreading the fire which grew into the Pilgrimage of Grace, Henry suppressed the abbeys, sold the lands, and with the proceeds armed the coast with fortresses. 'You threaten me,' he seemed to say to them, 'that ...
— English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century - Lectures Delivered at Oxford Easter Terms 1893-4 • James Anthony Froude

... height, and walked majestically towards Jim, who at her unexpected exit had suddenly thrown himself upon the sand, in utterly abject terror and supplication. She approached him slowly, with one small hand uplifted in a menacing gesture. The man writhed and squirmed before her. Then she turned, caught sight of Pomfrey standing in the doorway, and walked quietly away. Amazed, yet gratified with this new assertion of herself, Pomfrey respectfully, but alas! incautiously, called after her. In an instant, ...
— Under the Redwoods • Bret Harte

... thing, And filleth no heart anywhere, Though men with fingers menacing Point at the great house, none will dare, When Fortune knocks, to bar the door Proclaiming: "Come thou here no more!" Lo, to this man the Gods have given Great Ilion in the dust to tread And home return, ...
— Agamemnon • Aeschylus

... open the doors and searched the dwelling, but in vain. Comminges, wounded by a stone which had struck him on the forehead, had left a picket in the street and returned to the Palais Royal, followed by a menacing crowd, ...
— Twenty Years After • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... had been able to save a little money, and he feared that it might be demanded. He had already paid off the smaller debts that were owed in the village; but he knew his father too well not to be afraid of getting some menacing letters presently. If his father had only fled the country! But how could that be done without money? He would not work his passage; Harry was certain enough of that. Would it not be better to let him have the money and go to the farthest ...
— Betty Leicester - A Story For Girls • Sarah Orne Jewett

... possessed. "O mother, mother!" said he, "the viper! my brother has a viper in his hand!" He then, like one frantic, made an effort to snatch the creature away from me. The viper now hissed amain, and raised its head, in which were eyes like hot coals, menacing, not myself, but my brother. I dropped my captive, for I saw my mother running towards me; and the reptile, after standing for a moment nearly erect, and still hissing furiously, made off, and disappeared. The whole scene is now before me, as vividly as if it occurred ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow

... judges decern and ordain Anton Anderson for the back-biting and slandering of Andrew Fraser, bailie; and Alexander Logan, notary, for saying to them that the said persons have sold him to his contrar (opposite) party by seeking out of his decreet; and also for boasting (threatening) and menacing of the said persons, is decerned in twenty merks money; and likewise shall come to the Cross by ten hours on Saturday, in presence of the magistrates, conveyed by the officers from his own house, and there shall confess in presence of the haill people ...
— The Celtic Magazine, Vol. 1, No. 2, December 1875 • Various

... were by no means idle. Captain Lyon had foreseen the danger menacing the public property in the arsenal, and besought the Government for permission to remove it. Twenty thousand stand of arms were, in a single night, loaded upon a steamer and sent to Alton, Illinois. They ...
— Camp-Fire and Cotton-Field • Thomas W. Knox

... was not raised. The first man's pistol had appeared just a fraction of a second sooner, and they saw that it was poised, menacing the rustler. ...
— The Two-Gun Man • Charles Alden Seltzer

... 'precisely so'?" Ivan questioned him, with a menacing light in his eyes, restraining ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky

... Venezuela. So long as Spain possessed those fine colonies in tranquillity, the little insurrections of the slaves were easily repressed; but when a struggle of another kind, that for independence, began, the blacks by their menacing position excited alternately the apprehensions of the opposite parties; and the gradual or instantaneous abolition of slavery has been proclaimed in different regions of Spanish America, less from motives of justice and humanity, than to secure the aid of an intrepid race ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America • Alexander von Humboldt

... The menacing clouds still hover darkly over the valley of death, and the muttering thunder that ever and anon reverberates faintly in the distance seems the sardonic chuckle of the demon of destruction as he pursues his way to ...
— The Johnstown Horror • James Herbert Walker

... conveyed in the Austrian ultimatum was the menacing figure of militant Germany. The veil that had hitherto concealed the hands that worked the string, was removed when Germany, under the pretense of localizing the quarrel to Serbian and Austrian soil, interrogated France and England, asking them to prevent Russia from defending Serbia in ...
— History of the World War - An Authentic Narrative of the World's Greatest War • Francis A. March and Richard J. Beamish

... though it is the bloom of May, are daily piled in sulky or menacing masses over Vesuvius and the Abruzzi, frothing out their curls of moulded mist across the bay, and climbing the heavens with toppling castle towers and ...
— New Italian sketches • John Addington Symonds

... was done very rapidly. The next day, March 30th, we had made sufficient progress to the south-west to warrant me in starting Sheridan with his cavalry over by Dinwiddie with instructions to then come up by the road leading north-west to Five Forks, thus menacing the ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan

... the maid, who disliked Muriel, stopped and made a noise like an exploding pop bottle, at the same time taking a little run in Muriel's direction and kicking at her with a menacing foot. Muriel, wounded and startled, had turned in her tracks and sprinted back up the staircase at the exact moment when the Honorable Freddie, who for some reason was in a great hurry, ran ...
— Something New • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse

... of many trades swung straight in his saddle and fell into the attitude of one listening. Then the good-natured grin became a menacing scowl. ...
— The Honorable Senator Sage-Brush • Francis Lynde

... Cossacks, had been dismissed by the Provisional Government for his complicity in the Kornilov affair. He flatly refused to resign, and surrounded by three immense Cossack armies lay at Novotcherkask, plotting and menacing. So great was his power that the Government was forced to ignore his insubordination. More than that, it was compelled formally to recognise the Council of the Union of Cossack Armies, and to declare illegal the newly-formed Cossack ...
— Ten Days That Shook the World • John Reed

... reflections and recollections to crowd upon his mind, the old man became aware of his present situation. Throwing one end of his rifle to the earth, he stood leaning on the other, again lost in deep contemplation for several minutes, during which time his hound came and crouched at his feet. A deep, menacing growl, from the faithful animal, first ...
— The Prairie • J. Fenimore Cooper

... Menacing the one who slew him Scowls the brow's relentless feud, By his noble life blood crimsoned O'er his ...
— Russian Lyrics • Translated by Martha Gilbert Dickinson Bianchi

... Germany, and in proportion as the hopes of peace diminished Prussia redoubled her threats, which were inspired by the recollection of the deeds of the great Frederick. The idea of peace was hateful to Prussia. Her measures, which till now had been sufficiently moderate, suddenly assumed a menacing aspect on learning that the Minister of the King of England had declared in Parliament that France had consented to the restitution of Hanover. The French Ministry intimated to the Prussian Government that this was a preliminary step towards a general peace, and that a large indemnity ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne

... stuffy hall he faced what was at the start almost a menacing crowd. Yet as he addressed them you would have thought that he had known every man and woman in the assembly all their lives. The easy, intimate, frank manner of his delivery: his immediate claim to kinship with them on the ground of a common lowly birth: his quick and stirring appeal ...
— The War After the War • Isaac Frederick Marcosson

... one appeared to have a good effect on the others, for although many a menacing glance was east upon us, and many a half-uttered oath was checked, yet there was no more ...
— The Gold Hunter's Adventures - Or, Life in Australia • William H. Thomes

... with him, and is about twenty years old. She is very handsome, and of a beautiful figure. What the greatest artists have aimed at is shown in perfection, in movement, in ravishing variety. Standing, kneeling, sitting, lying down, grave or sad, playful, exulting, repentant, wanton, menacing, anxious, all mental states follow rapidly one after another. With wonderful taste she suits the folding of her veil to each expression, and with the same handkerchief makes every kind of head-dress. The Old Knight holds the Light for her, and enters into the exhibition ...
— Drake, Nelson and Napoleon • Walter Runciman

... enemy O'ershadowing men, 'tis Folly, Knavery! A sea; nor stays that sea the bastioned beach. Now must the brother soul alive in each, His traitorous individual devildom Hold subject lest the grand destruction come. Dimly men see it menacing apace To overthrow, perchance uproot the race. Within, without, they are a field of tares: Fruitfuller for them when the contest squares, And wherefore warrior service they must yield, Shines visible as life on either field. That is my comfort, following shock ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... consider that it appreciably accelerated the end of the war. But "Guillaume," as she always called him, was the principal object of Madame's aversion, and she never mentioned the name of the All-Highest without a lethal gesture as she drew her tremulous hand across her throat and uttered the menacing words: "Couper la gorge." She often uttered these maledictions to Sykes in the kitchen, as she watched him making the toast for my breakfast, and I have no doubt that the "Oui, Madame," with which he invariably assented, gave her great satisfaction. Doubtless it made her feel that ...
— Leaves from a Field Note-Book • J. H. Morgan

... a fine, exhilarating experience; for, added to the joy of battle with the elements, there was the wild grandeur of the scene, the great masses of black cloud scurrying athwart the sky, with little patches of starlit blue winking in and out between, the roar and swoop of the wind, and the menacing hiss of the phosphorescent foam-caps as they came rushing down upon the boat in endless succession, all combining together to form a picture the like of which, as viewed from a wildly leaping, half-swamped, spray-smothered open boat, ...
— Turned Adrift • Harry Collingwood

... practised upon them, like men who have forbidden salt tears and clenched their teeth and closed their hearts, who see, who hate; even from these early days, the energy of his line was capable of all this, and his spontaneous sense of arabesque could become menacing and explosive. There are two or three drawings of angry, crying cupids (Lipp., 153 and 446, see illustration opposite), prepared for some intended picture of the Crucifixion, where he has made the motive of the ...
— Albert Durer • T. Sturge Moore

... man at any time, though up to then he had at least looked amiable. But now as I stood with my hand on the back of my chair, his face grew suddenly menacing. The silence was absolute. I was the guiltiest wretch alive, and opposite me the law towered and glowered, and held the yellow remnant of a pineapple cheese! And in the silence that wretched watch lay and ticked and ticked and ticked. Then Flannigan creaked over and closed the ...
— When a Man Marries • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... confine themselves to blackmailing the countries and petty states that tremble before the shadow of Rome; the courts of the secondary kings of the Orient, the court of the Ptolemies at Alexandria,—all are invaded by a horde of insatiable senators and knights, who, menacing and promising, extort money to spend in Italy and foment the growing extravagance. The debts pile up, the political corruption overflows, scandals follow, the parties in Rome rend each other madly, though hail-fellow-well-met in the provinces to plunder subjects and vassals. ...
— Characters and events of Roman History • Guglielmo Ferrero

... were, they yet seriously disconcerted Bonaparte. He was at Montechiaro, a village situated on the road between Brescia and Mantua, when, on July 29th, he heard that the white-coats had driven in Massena's vanguard above Rivoli on the Adige, were menacing other positions near Verona and Legnago, and were advancing on Brescia. As soon as the full extent of the peril was manifest, he sent off ten despatches to his generals, ordering a concentration of troops—these, of course, fighting so as to delay the pursuit—towards ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose

... did not know anything about thermometers. Possibly in its brain there was no sharp consciousness of a condition of very cold such as was in the man's brain. But the brute had its instinct. It experienced a vague but menacing apprehension that subdued it and made it slink along at the man's heels, and that made it question eagerly every unwonted movement of the man as if expecting him to go into camp or to seek shelter somewhere and build a fire. The dog had learned fire, and it wanted fire, or else to burrow ...
— Lost Face • Jack London

... little closer, and the blacksmith sat down on the vacant space left at the outside. In his confusion he drew his hand across his brow, and snapped his fingers loudly in the silence. A few faces at the back wore a grin, and would have laughed had not Sandy, closing the door quietly, given them one menacing look which quelled their merriment. He was not going to have the "old man" made fun of in his extremity; and they all had respect enough for Sandy's fist not to run the risk of encountering it after the meeting was over. Macdonald himself was more to be ...
— In the Midst of Alarms • Robert Barr

... that they could get more money almost anywhere else and work and live like decent human beings. Adam Kraus had opened their eyes. He was their hero—for the moment. As he came, somewhat precipitously, from the office building they gave a quick shout that died, however, with a menacing suddenness, as they saw his failure written on his angry face. They pressed about him, eager for details, but he would tell them nothing beyond a curt admission that he had not been able to make ...
— Red-Robin • Jane Abbott

... wall. The visitor enters first a large outer court, at the extremity of which a huge gateway opens upon an inner court. Beneath the arch stand two statues of war-gods, each eighteen feet high, with terribly distorted faces and the most menacing attitudes; these are supposed to prevent the approach of evil genii. A second portal, of similar construction, under which are placed the "four heavenly kings," leads to a third court, surrounding the principal temple, a structure one ...
— The Story of Ida Pfeiffer - and Her Travels in Many Lands • Anonymous

... from place to place to instruct his inferiors in the society. The elders of the congregations, venerable and learned men, trembled like spaniels before him. A great scholar who would not accept his infallibility, was thrown into such terror by his menacing look that he fell into a violent fever and died. And this ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill

... line; still we think it would require some casuistry to show that the present slave-trade from that quarter is a whit better than the one from Africa. One thing is certain—that its results are more menacing to the tranquillity of the people in this quarter, as there can be no comparison between the ability and inclination to do mischief, possessed by the Virginia negro, and that of the ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society

... world!" shouted the maniac, still advancing with a menacing air, and so near the wagon by this time that he might almost have ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 21, July, 1859 • Various

... restless and perturbed state of poor Ireland by saying, "After all, I believe America is the land of peace and quiet." It seems to me, who am here, that everything at this moment threatens change and disintegration in this country. It is impossible to imagine more menacing elements of discord and disunion than those which exist in the opposite and antagonistic interests of its southern and northern provinces, and the anomalous mixture of aristocratic feeling and democratic institutions.... God bless you, my dear H——. ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble

... of Benito's announcement and its menacing augury, Inez sought her father and Adrian. The latter acted instantly. "Do not tell your wife," he said to Windham. "There may be nothing amiss. And if there should be, she will find no profit in knowing. Tell her you are called away and follow me to ...
— Port O' Gold • Louis John Stellman

... themselves among the great blocks of stone piled there for the new bridge building. At the same instant, on looking back, they perceived that the cavalry had faced about and were returning, so that they found themselves hemmed in between the troops and the menacing mob. Many other carriages were caught in the same cul-de-sac, and Calvert, looking out, saw the pale face of Madame de St. Andre at the window of her carriage beside him. Her coachman was trying in vain to get his horses through the crowd and was looking confoundedly frightened. ...
— Calvert of Strathore • Carter Goodloe

... among the sharp flints a hundred feet below; now they rattled through the street of a sleepy village that seemed to have no reason for being except its picturesqueness; now they were creeping up a tortuous steep gloomed by menacing crags; and now their way lingered for miles along a precipice, over the edge of which they could see the spear-like tips of the tall pines ...
— The Queen of Sheba & My Cousin the Colonel • Thomas Bailey Aldrich

... was the deathly stillness around. But even as the tall, square building rose before us above the vapor, yellow lighted in various stories, and mighty in height and breadth, there broke upon my ear a deep-mouthed, menacing bay, which gave at once almost alarming reality to the eerie surroundings. 'His lordship's boar and wolf hounds,' quoth my charioteer calmly, unmindful of the regular pandemonium, of howls and barks which ensued as he skillfully ...
— The Lock And Key Library - Classic Mystery And Detective Stories, Modern English • Various

... and Rose, occurred just after the turn in the day, and lasted fully an hour. Each had been too much interested to observe the heavens, but, as they were on the point of separating, Rose pointed out to her companion the unusual and most menacing aspect of the sky in the western horizon. It appeared as if a fiery heat was glowing there, behind a curtain of black vapour; and what rendered it more remarkable, was the circumstance that an extraordinary degree of placidity prevailed in all ...
— Jack Tier or The Florida Reef • James Fenimore Cooper

... thousand reindeer, whose branching antlers looked like a perfect forest of dry limbs. The dogs all gave voice simultaneously, like a pack of foxhounds in view of the game, and dashed tumultuously down the hill, regardless of the shouts of their masters, and the menacing cries of three or four dark forms which rose suddenly up from the snow between them and the frightened deer. Above the tumult I could hear Dodd's voice, hurling imprecations in Russian at his yelping dogs, which, in spite of ...
— Tent Life in Siberia • George Kennan

... towering forests, the black skies and deafening thunder, the wild cries of bird and beast the savages, uncouth and terrible,—for a moment I saw my world as the woman at my feet must see it, strange, wild, and menacing, an evil land, the other side of the moon. A thing that I had forgotten came to my mind: how that, after our landing at Jamestown, years before, a boy whom we had with us did each night fill with cries and lamentations the hut where he lay with my cousin Percy, Gosnold, ...
— To Have and To Hold • Mary Johnston

... Austria's rule of terror during the first three years of war, and by their firm opposition, which they by and by induced the Poles and Yugoslavs to imitate, they brought about a permanent political deadlock, menacing Austria's very existence internally and ...
— Independent Bohemia • Vladimir Nosek

... weapon in his hands; the revolver was in a drawer; but nevertheless Ravengar shrank from those menacing hands. ...
— Hugo - A Fantasia on Modern Themes • Arnold Bennett

... from the granite. It was widened to hang like a shelf over sickening depths or built up with concrete to withstand the wash from some menacing gorge, or tilted to cling desperately to a blank wall that offered not even claw hold for the eagles. And always it must drop with a grade that took no ...
— Still Jim • Honore Willsie Morrow

... was the result he got from Louis XV. Lately, "for form's sake," as he tells us, "and not expecting anything," he had (November 15th) made a new appeal to France: "Ruin menacing your Most Christian Majesty's Ally, in this huge sudden crisis of invasive Austrian-Saxons; and for your Majesty's sake, may I not in some measure say?" To which Louis's Answer is also given. A very sickly, unpleasant Document; testifying ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XV. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle

... the world, you won't!" said Billy rising lazily and taking a gentle menacing step ...
— The City of Fire • Grace Livingston Hill

... moment, had not waked in its high cage, and, thrusting its beak between the bars, shrilled out in the most alarming of tones: 'Remember Evelyn!' That startled the old man even more than the sight on the floor had done. He turned round, and I saw his fist rise as if against some menacing intruder, but it quickly fell again as his eyes encountered the picture which hung before him, and with a cringe painful to see in one of his years, he sidled back till he reached the doorway. Here he paused a minute to give another look at the ...
— The Circular Study • Anna Katharine Green

... another door into the interior of the house, he left me to myself. Presently I heard the jar of iron from the far end of the building; and this was followed by the same throbbing noise that had startled me in the valley, but now so near at hand as to be menacing by loudness, and even to shake the house with every recurrence of the stroke. I had scarce time to master my alarm when the doctor returned, and almost in the same moment my mother appeared upon the threshold. But how am I to describe to you the peace and ravishment of that face? Years seemed ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 5 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... Faber Street was the North Canal, with a granite-paved roadway between it and the monotonous row of company boarding houses. Even in bright weather Janet felt a sense of oppression here; on dark, misty mornings the stern, huge battlements of the mills lining the farther bank were menacing indeed, bristling with projections, towers, and chimneys, flanked by heavy walls. Had her experience included Europe, her imagination might have seized the medieval parallel,—the arched bridges flung at intervals across the water, lacking only chains to raise them in case of siege. The place ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... Arlington and dancing with herself. She went so far that Louis, filled with a spirit more heady than wine, got down on his knees and was trying to make Patsy understand his undying devotion, when the curtain was pushed furiously aside and Mrs. Arlington appeared menacing in the brilliant illumination of the stairs. Behind, having no connection with her, but equally there on a mission of vengeance, loomed up the chubby giant, Prince ...
— Patsy • S. R. Crockett

... so with our scientific societies, the members of which regarded with regret the approaching destruction of our planetary system. The Academy of Sciences called the attention of geometers of all countries to these menacing perturbations. Euler and Lagrange descended into the arena. Never did their mathematical genius shine with a brighter lustre. Still, the question remained undecided. The inutility of such efforts seemed to suggest only a feeling of resignation on the subject, when from ...
— Biographies of Distinguished Scientific Men • Francois Arago

... of the Old World in order to occupy either an equal, or a menacing, position toward the New World, as circumstances may dictate. For this purpose she has encouraged this war. The German Federated States of Europe are defending themselves with might and main, and are counting in this struggle for existence on the good-will of the United States ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War from the Beginning to March 1915, Vol 1, No. 2 - Who Began the War, and Why? • Various

... the rock, but, at that moment, a dark body of Indians poured up over the cliffs, crowning it with a menacing cloud of at least fifty armed warriors. The rivulet lay between her and the Hut, and the nearest bridge that crossed it would have brought her within reach of danger. Then it would require at least half an hour ...
— Wyandotte • James Fenimore Cooper

... to see. He made a menacing step forward as if he would throw himself upon the detective. But the strong right hands of Inspector Cameron and Police Constable Fraser tightened on his arms and restrained his further action. He seemed for the first time to be conscious ...
— The Ashiel mystery - A Detective Story • Mrs. Charles Bryce

... close after, seemed determined upon rescuing its mate out of the hands of its captors; and uttering loud screams, it flew, first at one, then at another of them—with its long pointed talons menacing each ...
— The Cliff Climbers - A Sequel to "The Plant Hunters" • Captain Mayne Reid

... of comparative quietude we are not to suppose that there were no threatenings of foreign disturbance. The adherents of the Stuarts were never at rest; the controversies which grew out of the Treaty of Utrecht were always sputtering and menacing. Cardinal {264} Fleury, a statesman devoted to peace and economy, had become Prime-minister of France. Other new figures were arising on the field of Continental politics. Alberoni, in exile and ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume I (of 4) • Justin McCarthy

... the tropic gale; pale green gardens of berry and leaf and long meandering vine, rocking upon the waves that lapped the shores of the Antilles, feeding the current of the warm Gulf Stream; and, forsooth, some of them to find their way at last into the mazes of that mysterious, mighty, menacing sargasso sea. Strange sea-monsters, more beautiful than monstrous, sported in the foam about our prow, and at intervals dashed it with color like animated rainbows. From wave to wave the flying fish skimmed like winged arrows of silver. Sometimes a land-bird ...
— In the Footprints of the Padres • Charles Warren Stoddard

... wage levels would confer such indirect assistance to recovery as might come from the lessening of the fear that a future fall in wages will make present production unprofitable. The factor of industrial unrest and discontent is apt to be less menacing. Lastly, it may be said that wage reductions might be reflected in the efficiency of the least favorably ...
— The Settlement of Wage Disputes • Herbert Feis

... question of the honour and security of our families, and that never before has been seen in this country a woman wild of body or a daughter of pleasure, carrying on with such mischief of vocation of light o' love, and menacing so openly and bitterly the life, the savings, the morals, chastity, religion, and the everything of the inhabitants of ...
— Droll Stories, Complete - Collected From The Abbeys Of Touraine • Honore de Balzac

... checkered history had Keekie Joe ever received any edible of any character whatever in response to his menacing demands. He had always assumed that boys who were well dressed had fruit or candy in their pockets. He had sometimes required them to verify their denials by an exhibition of the interior of these receptacles. His invariable demand had become a habit ...
— Pee-Wee Harris Adrift • Percy Keese Fitzhugh

... trust appeared treacherie." For on the first night of the mariage, Danaus deliuered to ech of his daughters a sword, charging them that when their husbands after their bankets and pastimes were once brought into a sound sleepe, ech of them should slea hir husband, menacing them with death vnlesse they fulfilled his commandement. They all therefore obeied the will of their father, Hypermnestra onely excepted, with whom preuailed more the loue of kinred and wedlocke, than the feare of hir fathers displeasure: ...
— Chronicles (1 of 6): The Historie of England (1 of 8) • Raphael Holinshed

... she said. And then suddenly, looking about at the menacing sky and motionless air, ...
— Roderick Hudson • Henry James

... So menacing were his looks and his tones that the women fled quaking from the hall and left him to tend the fires. So there he stood in view of the whole company, to their eyes a poor outcast, intent on his menial task; but thoughts other than of ...
— Stories from the Odyssey • H. L. Havell

... my horizon (I mean this in no menacing sense) is the Prince. I have philosophical and artistic discussions with the Prince. He is capable of talking for two hours upon end, developing his theory of everything under Heaven from his first position, which is that there is no straight line. Doesn't that sound like ...
— The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 1 • Robert Louis Stevenson

... rubbing its long beard in a most curious way, leaps about in every direction. At the slightest cause of offence, it gives a savage grin, wrinkling the skin of its face and jaws, and threatening the offender with the most menacing grimaces. ...
— The Western World - Picturesque Sketches of Nature and Natural History in North - and South America • W.H.G. Kingston



Words linked to "Menacing" :   forbidding, alarming



Copyright © 2024 Dictionary One.com