Meaning & use
threaten
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Meanings
verbtransitive
To tell someone that you may hurt or punish them, or cause trouble, unless they do what you want.
Grammar: Takes an object and often a to-infinitive: threaten to sue, threaten someone with something.
Patterns
- threaten someone
- threaten someone with something
- threaten to do something
The landlord threatened to evict them if the rent was late again.
She threatened him with a lawsuit.
Protesters were threatened with arrest.
verbtransitive
To put something in danger of being harmed or destroyed.
Grammar: The subject can be a thing, not a person: pollution threatens the river.
Patterns
- threaten something
- be threatened by something
Pollution threatens the fish in the lake.
The new highway threatens the old forest.
Rising prices threaten the survival of small shops.
verbintransitive
To seem likely to happen, usually something unpleasant.
Grammar: Usually describes weather or danger and takes no object: Rain threatened all day.
Patterns
- threaten to do something
Dark clouds threatened over the hills all afternoon.
The argument threatened to ruin the party.
Word forms
| third person singular | threatens |
|---|---|
| past tense | threatened |
| past participle | threatened |
| -ing form | threatening |
Common combinations
- threaten legal action
- The company threatened legal action over the copied logo.
- threaten to resign
- The manager threatened to resign if the plan failed.
- threaten someone's safety
- Loose wires threaten the safety of every worker.
- seriously threaten
- A drought could seriously threaten the harvest.
- threaten with violence
- He was arrested for threatening a neighbor with violence.
Synonyms and how they differ
- menace
- Menace is more literary and suggests a more frightening, ongoing danger than threaten does.
- endanger
- Endanger means to put something at actual risk, while threaten can also mean only promising harm.
- intimidate
- Intimidate is to frighten someone into doing something, often through behavior alone, without saying a threat aloud.
- jeopardize
- Jeopardize means to put something at risk of failure or loss and is common with plans, success and safety.
Opposites
Word family
- threat noun
- a statement of intent to harm, or a possible danger
- threatening adjective
- giving a sense of danger
- threatened adjective
- at risk, as in a threatened species
- threateningly adverb
- in a menacing way
Commonly confused: threaten or intimidate?
threaten vs intimidate
To intimidate someone is to make them afraid, often by manner alone, while to threaten usually involves stating or implying specific harm.
Practice
The manager ____ the staff with dismissal if they were late again.
Choose one answer.
Threaten someone with something means to warn of a punishment. Rewarded, promised and thanked do not fit with dismissal as a warning.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “threaten”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.