different between threatening vs barbarous

English

Alternative forms

• threatning (obsolete)

Etymology

From threaten +? -ing.

Pronunciation

• enPR: thr?t??n??, IPA^(key): /????t.n?.??/
• Hyphenation: threat?en?ing

Verb

threatening

1. present participle of threaten

Adjective

threatening (comparative more threatening, superlative most threatening)

1. Presenting a threat; menacing; frightening.

Derived terms

Translations

Noun

threatening (countable and uncountable, plural threatenings)

1. An act of threatening; a threat.
   • 1526, William Tyndale, trans. Bible, Acts IV:

     And nowe lorde beholde their threatenynges, and graunte unto thy servauntes wyth all confydence to speake thy worde.

   • 1859-1895, Charles Dickens, All the Year Round

     The butcher's boy — a fierce and beefy youth, who openly defied the dog, and waved him off with hurlings of his basket and threatenings of his feet, accompanied by growls of "Git out, yer beast!" — now entered silently […]

English

Alternative forms

• (obsolete) barbarouse

Etymology

Late Middle English, from Latin barbarus (“foreigner, savage”), from Ancient Greek ???????? (bárbaros, “foreign, strange”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?b??(?)b???s/

Adjective

barbarous (comparative more barbarous, superlative most barbarous)

1. (said of language) Not classical or pure.
2. uncivilized, uncultured
   • 1923, Walter de la Mare, Seaton's Aunt

     I felt vaguely he was a sneak, and remained quite unmollified by advances on his side, which, in a boy's barbarous fashion, unless it suited me to be magnanimous, I haughtily ignored.

3. Like a barbarian, especially in sound; noisy, dissonant.

   I did but prompt the age to quit their cloggs

   By the known rules of antient libertie,

   When strait a barbarous noise environs me

   Of Owles and Cuckoes, Asses, Apes and Doggs - I did but prompt the age to quit their cloggs, John Milton (1673)

Derived terms

• barbarously
• barbarousness

Related terms

• barbarian
• barbaric

Translations