Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Menacing; threatening punishment.
  • In law, coercive; threatening; imposing an unconscionable forfeiture or other hardship, in such sense as not to be enforcible in a court of justice.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • adjective Threatening or denouncing punishment.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adjective Of or pertaining to commination.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • adjective containing warning of punishment

Etymologies

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Examples

  • I detected something comminatory in his yellow, emaciated countenance, but I believe now he was simply startled by my youth.

    The Arrow of Gold 2006

  • I detected something comminatory in his yellow, emaciated countenance, but I believe now he was simply startled by my youth.

    The Arrow of Gold : A Story Between Two Notes 1919

  • I detected something comminatory in his yellow, emaciated countenance, but I believe now he was simply startled by my youth.

    The Arrow of Gold 1919

  • On the 25th the German Ambassador proceeds to the Quai d'Orsay, to notify in comminatory terms that Berlin sides with Vienna; panic in the different Bourses; recall of the Austrian Ambassador from Belgrade, notwithstanding the almost complete acceptance of the draconian conditions he presented twenty-four hours before.

    The Diary of a French Army Chaplain Felix, Klein 1915

  • At first Mrs. Greyne contented herself with daily letters, but latterly she had resorted to wires, explanatory, condemnatory, hortatory, and even comminatory.

    The Mission Of Mr. Eustace Greyne 1905 Robert Smythe Hichens 1907

  • But presently Arran began to suspect that the portrait was not as comminatory as he could have wished.

    The Hermit and the Wild Woman Edith Wharton 1899

  • This is a great question upon which the solution of many others depends, and for the examination of it, the hour of the comminatory decree of arrest, and that of the real decree may be remarked to advantage.

    The Confessions of J J Rousseau Rousseau, Jean Jacques 1896

  • Captain Tom went sailing from island to island, appearing unexpectedly in various localities, beaming, noisy, anecdotal, commendatory or comminatory, but always welcome.

    An Outcast Of The Islands 1896

  • He read his danger in the stony eyes of the girl; and in the very act of leaping to his feet he heard sharply, detached on the comminatory voice of the storm the brief report of a shot which half stunned him, in the manner of a blow.

    Victory Joseph Conrad 1890

  • I detected something comminatory in his yellow, emaciated countenance, but I believe now he was simply startled by my youth.

    The Arrow of Gold Joseph Conrad 1890

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  • "The Articles of War did not possess the terrible force of some parts of the Old Testament, but Captain Aubrey had a deep voice with immense reserves of power, and as he ran through the catalogue of naval crimes it took on a fine comminatory ring that pleased the hands almost as much as Jeremiah or the Great Anathema."

    --Patrick O'Brian, The Thirteen Gun Salute, 288

    March 5, 2008