different between threatening vs truculent

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

Etymology

First attested circa 1540, from Middle French, from Latin truculentus (“fierce, savage”), from trux (“fierce, wild”).

Pronunciation

• enPR: \tr?k'-y?-l?nt\, IPA^(key): /?t??kj?l?nt/

Adjective

truculent (comparative more truculent, superlative most truculent)

1. Cruel or savage.

   The truculent soldiers gave us a steely-eyed stare.

2. Deadly or destructive.
3. Defiant or uncompromising.
4. Eager or quick to argue, fight or start a conflict.
   • 1992, Joel Feinberg, “The Social Importance of Moral Rights” in Philosophical Perspectives VI (Ethics, 1992), page 195:

     It is an important source of the value of moral rights then that?—?speaking very generally?—?they dispose people with opposed interests to be reasonable rather than arrogant and truculent.

   • 2010, Seal Team 6 Member, in Esquire Magazine "The Man Who Killed Osama bin Laden..."[1]

     (Refering to women in Bin Laden’s compound) “These bitches is getting truculent.”

Quotations

• 1847, Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre, ch VI,

  In her turn, Helen Burns asked me to explain, and I proceeded forthwith to pour out, in my own way, the tale of my sufferings and resentments. Bitter and truculent when excited, I spoke as I felt, without reserve or softening.

• 1860–1861, Charles Dickens, Great Expectations, ch XLVI,

  She really was a most charming girl, and might have passed for a captive fairy, whom that truculent Ogre, Old Barley, had pressed into his service.

• 1877, Leo Tolstoy (author), David Magarshack (translator), Anna Karenina, part 6, ch 12,

  She might pity herself, but he must not pity her. She did not want any quarrel; she blamed him for wanting one, but she could not help assuming a truculent attitude.

• 1895, H. G. Wells, The Wheels of Chance, ch 10,

  Most of them were little dramatic situations, crucial dialogues, the return of Mr. Hoopdriver to his native village, for instance, in a well-cut holiday suit and natty gloves, the unheard asides of the rival neighbours, the delight of the old ‘mater’, the intelligence—“A ten-pound rise all at once from Antrobus, mater. Whad d’yer think of that?” or again, the first whispering of love, dainty and witty and tender, to the girl he served a few days ago with sateen, or a gallant rescue of generalised beauty in distress from truculent insult or ravening dog.

• 1914, Edgar Rice Burroughs, The Beasts of Tarzan, ch 10,

  If he came too close to a she with a young baby, the former would bare her great fighting fangs and growl ominously, and occasionally a truculent young bull would snarl a warning if Tarzan approached while the former was eating.

• 1922, Rafael Sabatini, Captain Blood: His Odyssy, ch XVI,

  Cahusac appeared to be having it all his own way, and he raised his harsh, querulous voice so that all might hear his truculent denunciation.

• 1925, Richard Henry Tawney, “Introduction”, to Thomas Wilson A discourse upon usury by way of dialogue and orations: for the better variety and more delight of all those that shall read this treatise (1572); Classics of social and political science Page 2

  Whatever his prejudices—and his book shows that they were tough—the most truculent of self-made capitalists could not have criticised him as a child in matters of finance. He had tried commercial cases, negotiated commercial treaties, …

Synonyms

• (cruel or savage): barbarous, cruel, ferocious, fierce, savage
• (deadly or destructive): deadly, destructive
• (defiant or uncompromising): defiant, inflexible, stubborn, uncompromising, unyielding
• (eager or quick to argue, fight or start a conflict): belligerent

Related terms

• truculence
• truculency
• truculently

Translations

See also

• belligerent

Anagrams

• unclutter

French

Etymology

From Latin truculentus (“fierce, savage”), from trux (“fierce, wild”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /t?y.ky.l??/

Adjective

truculent (feminine singular truculente, masculine plural truculents, feminine plural truculentes)

1. violent or belligerent in a colorful, over-the-top or memorable fashion
2. picturesque

Verb

truculent

1. third-person plural present indicative of truculer
2. third-person plural present subjunctive of truculer

Further reading

• “truculent” in Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).

Romanian

Etymology

From French truculent, from Latin truculentus.

Adjective

truculent m or n (feminine singular truculent?, masculine plural truculen?i, feminine and neuter plural truculente)

1. truculent

Declension