minatory

Borrowed from Middle French minatoire, from Latin minatorius, from minari (“to threaten”).

Cognate to menace.

minatory (comparative more minatory, superlative most minatory)

1. Threatening, menacing.
   • 1837 Thomas Carlyle, The French Revolution: A History

     [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....

   • 1887: Number 3, Lauriston Gardens wore an ill-omened and minatory look. — Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, A Study in Scarlet
   • 1888, Henry James, The Reverberator.

     [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.

   • 1997: In the cottage next to the post office Alma Crumble broke her wrist stirring batter, at which the Bug declared in a minatory tone that 'That was enough of that.' — Edward Gorey, The Haunted Tea-Cosy
   • 1995: She shook hands firmly with Adam Dalgleish and gave him a minatory glance as if welcoming a new patient from whom she expected trouble — P.D. James, The Black Tower

• minacious, ominous, sinister

• Merriam-Webster’s Word of the Day: The Word of the Day for November 24, 2007 is: minatory