different between impend vs threat

English

Etymology

Borrowed from Latin impendere (“to hang over, to weigh out”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?m?p?nd/
• Rhymes: -?nd

Verb

impend (third-person singular simple present impends, present participle impending, simple past and past participle impended)

1. (obsolete) To hang or be suspended over (something); to overhang.
   • 1789, John Moore, Zeluco, Valancourt 2008, p. 210:

     The Earl had often heard of a rich citizen […] and the peculiar charm of a little snug rotunda which he had just finished on the verge of his ground, and which impended the great London road.

   • When a thing really impends over another, e.g. when one stands at a fountain (????????), over which one really leans.

2. (intransitive) Figuratively to hang over (someone) as a threat or danger.
3. (intransitive) To threaten to happen; to be about to happen, to be imminent.
4. (obsolete) To pay.

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Fabyan to this entry?)

Related terms

Translations

Anagrams

• Mendip

English

Pronunciation

• (UK, US) enPR: thr?t, IPA^(key): /???t/
• Rhymes: -?t

Etymology 1

From Middle English threte, thret, thrat, thræt, threat, from Old English þr?at (“crowd, swarm, troop, army, press; pressure, trouble, calamity, oppression, force, violence, threat”), from Proto-Germanic *þrautaz, closely tied to Proto-Germanic *þraut? (“displeasure, complaint, grievance, labour, toil”), from Proto-Indo-European *trewd- (“to squeeze, push, press”), whence also Middle Low German dr?t (“threat, menace, danger”), Middle High German dr?z (“annoyance, disgust, horror, terror, fright”), Icelandic þraut (“struggle, labour, distress”), Latin tr?d? (“push”, verb).

Noun

threat (plural threats)

1. An expression of intent to injure or punish another.
   • 1599, William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar, Act 4, Scene 3

     There is no terror, Cassius, in your threats.

2. An indication of potential or imminent danger.
3. A person or object that is regarded as a danger; a menace.

Usage notes

Adjectives at least commonly used along with the noun: existential, possible

Derived terms

• idle threat

Related terms

• threaten
• threatening

Translations

Etymology 2

From Middle English threten, from Old English þr?atian (“to press, oppress, repress, correct, threaten”). Akin to Middle Dutch dr?ten (“to threaten”).

Verb

threat (third-person singular simple present threats, present participle threating, simple past and past participle threated)

1. (transitive) To press; urge; compel.
2. (transitive, archaic) To threaten.
   • 1590, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, I.vii:

     An hideous Geant horrible and hye, / That with his talnesse seemd to threat the skye […]

   • 1599, William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar, V. i. 37:

     O yes, and soundless too; / For you have stolen their buzzing, Antony, / And very wisely threat before you sting.

3. (intransitive) To use threats; act or speak menacingly; threaten.

Anagrams

• Hatter, hatter, rateth, that're