forbidding

Definition

Appearing to be threatening, unfriendly or potentially unpleasant.

Etymology

By surface analysis, forbid + -ing.

Example Sentences

• "What cause, cry’d he, can justify our flight, To tempt the dangers of forbidding night?"
• "[…] he was discovered to be proud, to be above his company, and above being pleased; and not all his large estate in Derbyshire could then save him from having a most forbidding, disagreeable countenance, and being unworthy to be compared with his friend."
• "With no great disparity between them in point of years, they were, in every other respect, as unlike and far removed from each other as two men could well be. The one was soft-spoken, delicately made, precise, and elegant; the other, a burly square-built man, negligently dressed, rough and abrupt in manner, stern, and, in his present mood, forbidding both in look and speech."