minatory

Definition

Threatening, menacing.

Etymology

Borrowed from Middle French minatoire, from Late Latin minātōrius, from Latin minor, minārī (“to threaten, speak or act menacingly, hold out the threat of”, verbal derivative of minae, plural only, "threats, menaces, portents of evil") + -tōrius, deverbal adjective suffix originally forming derivatives from agent nouns ending in -tōr-, -tor; minae probably, if originally "projecting points, overhang," noun derivative of the verbal base *men- seen in ēminēre (“to stick out, protrude”), of uncertain origin. Cognate to menace.

Example Sentences

• "[T]he Place de Greve, with its thirty thousand Regulars, its whole irregular Saint-Antoine and Saint-Marceau, is one minatory mass of clear or rusty steel […]"
• "Number 3, Lauriston Gardens wore an ill-omened and minatory look."
• "[H]er father quietly addressed a few words, by letter, to George Flack. This communication was not of a minatory order; it expressed on the contrary the loose sociability which was the essence of Mr. Dosson's nature."