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The condition or quality of being imminent; a threatening, as of something about to happen. The imminence of any danger or distress. Fuller.

Threatening to occur immediately; near at hand; impending; -- said especially of misfortune or peril. "In danger imminent." Spenser.

To hang over; to be suspended above; to threaten frome near at hand; to menace; to be imminent. See Imminent. Destruction sure o'er all your heads impends. Pope.

Impending; threatening. Impendent horrors, threatening hideous fall. Milton.

Hanging over; overhanging; suspended so as to menace; imminet; threatening. An impending brow. Hawthorne. And nodding Ilion waits th' impending fall. Pope.

To menace; to threaten. [Obs.] Bp. Hall.

, to look at a matter without prejudice. -- To look black, to frown; to scowl; to have a threatening appearance. The bishops thereat repined, and looked black. Holinshed. -- To look down on or upon, to treat with indifference or contempt; to regard as an inferior; to despise. -- To look for. (a) To expect; as, to loo…

To be dark, gloomy, and threatening, as clouds; to be covered with dark and threatening clouds, as the sky; to show threatening signs of approach, as a tempest. All the clouds that lowered upon our house. Shak.

Dark and threatening; gloomy; sullen; as, lowering clouds or sky.

In a lowering manner; with cloudiness or threatening gloom.

Tending to produce death; threatening a fatal issue; virulent; as, malignant diphtheria. Malignant pustule (Med.), a very contagious disease, transmitted to man from animals, characterized by the formation, at the point of reception of the virus, of a vesicle or pustule which first enlarges and then breaks down into an…

The show of an intention to inflict evil; a threat or threatening; indication of a probable evil or catastrophe to come. His (the pope's) commands, his rebukes, his menaces. Milman. The dark menace of the distant war. Dryden.

In a threatening manner.

Threatening; menacing. [R.]

Disposition to threaten. [R.]

Threatening; menacing. Bacon.

To put in opposition to; to manifest in an offensive way; to threaten; as, to offer violence, attack, etc.

To project or impend over threateningly. His louering brows o'erwhelming his fair sight. Shak.

off; to stop, or to turn aside; as, to parry a thrust, a blow, or anything that means or threatens harm. Locke. Vice parries wide The undreaded volley with a sword of straw. Cowper.

Enacting or threatening punishment; as, a penal statue; the penal code.