Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- adjective Of a menacing or threatening nature; minacious.
from The Century Dictionary.
- Threatening; menacing.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- adjective Threatening; menacing.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- adjective
Threatening ,menacing .
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- adjective threatening or foreshadowing evil or tragic developments
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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Brian Fagan does not mention this possibility in "Elixir," his minatory history of humans' relationship with water.
Any Drop to Drink? Felipe Fernandez-Armesto 2011
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And if you approach the area from the country end - along the trackbed of the Cleobury Mortimer & Ditton Priors Light Railway - you are still met by a forest of minatory signs.
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It might be fairer to say that the West today is suffering from welcoming the sunny side of Thatcherism while forgetting its minatory aspects.
What Would The Iron Lady Do? Charles Moore 2011
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And then the ironically minatory heading on the Twitter page: "What are you doing?"
Archive 2009-03-01 2009
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But Anam invests real narrative power in the sections set in the mid-80s, in which the past resonates as an often minatory echo.
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He spoke aloud again, but in a different voice: this one was stern, minatory, expressive.
Naked Cruelty Colleen McCullough 2010
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The priest had the boy gripped by the nape of the neck, a hold made somewhat difficult to maintain by the fact that the lad was slightly taller than his minatory captor.
Sick Cycle Carousel 2010
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Could someone fetch her, if it wouldn't be too much trouble "'she held out a minatory hand to Cormo, who looked as if he was going to bolt-" not you, Cormo!
Tran Siberian Michael J. Solender 2010
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In metallic black, the car looks minatory and sinister.
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I chose Angela Carter's "The Kitchen Child" because it shows her stories can be sunnier, funnier and altogether more high-spirited than her more minatory, gothic tales might suggest.
Helen Simpson reads 'The Kitchen Child' by Angela Carter 2010
idyll commented on the word minatory
The heavy gilding of the spines, seen through the fine gilt grilled of the carved and gilded bookcases, created a mood of minatory opulence.
December 27, 2006
arby commented on the word minatory
Of a menacing or threatening nature; minacious.
ETYMOLOGY: French minatoire, from Late Latin mintrius, from Latin mintus, past participle of minr, to threaten.
July 19, 2007
chained_bear commented on the word minatory
"Some of his vague, minatory words seemed to hint at an intention of asking Captain Aubrey for satisfaction, of calling him out; but his listeners were few; they paid little attention..."
--Patrick O'Brian, The Ionian Mission, 143
February 13, 2008
yarb commented on the word minatory
They slackened speed before they came to the wharf, which just here by the station jutted out in a grey bastion surmounted by the minatory finger of a derrick, and some of them climbed out and put round baskets full of shining fish upon their heads, and, walking struttingly to brake their heavy boots on the slippery mud, followed a wet track up to the cinderpath.
- Rebecca West, The Judge
July 29, 2009
jaime_d commented on the word minatory
From Thomas Carlyle's The French Revolution
March 6, 2011
biocon commented on the word minatory
In addition, minatory is a noun signifying a threat or menace (OED).
June 12, 2012