minatory

• miniatory (obsolete)

Borrowed from Middle French minatoire, from Late Latin minātōrius. Compare menace.

• enPR: mĭn′ə-tôr-ē
• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈmɪn.ə.tɔːɹ.iː/
• (General American, Canada, Scotland) IPA^(key): /ˈmɪn.ə.toɹ.i/; (also Scotland) /ˈmɪn.ʌ.toɹ.i/

  • Audio (US):

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• (General Australian) IPA^(key): /ˈmɪn.ə.toːɹ.iː/
• (New Zealand) IPA^(key): /ˈmən.ə.toːɹ.iː/
• Rhymes: -ɪnətɔːɹi
• Hyphenation: min‧a‧to‧ry

minatory (comparative more minatory, superlative most minatory)

2. Threatening, menacing.

   Synonyms: minacious, minatorial, ominous, sinister

   • 1837, Thomas Carlyle, “Usher Maillard”, in The French Revolution: A History […], volume I (The Bastille), London: Chapman and Hall, →OCLC, book VII (The Insurrection of Women), page 259:

     […] the Place de Grève, with its thirty thousand Regulars, its whole irregular Saint-Antoine and Saint-Marceau, is one minatory mass of clear or rusty steel; […]

   • 1887, A[rthur] Conan Doyle, “A Study in Scarlet”, in Beeton’s Christmas Annual, London; New York, N.Y.: Ward, Lock & Co., part I (Being a reprint from the reminiscences of John H. Watson, M.D., […]), chapter III (The Lauriston Gardens Mystery), page 17:

     Number 3, Lauriston Gardens wore an ill-omened and minatory look.

   • 1888, Henry James, chapter 13, in The Reverberator, Macmillan and Co.:

     […] her 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.

   • 1975, P. D. James, The Black Tower (Adam Dalgliesh; 5), New York: Faber & Faber, →ISBN, page 49:

     She shook hands firmly with Dalgliesh and gave him a minatory glance as if welcoming a new patient from whom she expected trouble.

   • 1997 December 21, Edward Gorey, The Haunted Tea-Cosy: A Dispirited and Distasteful Diversion for Christmas‎^[1], New York; San Diego; London: Harcourt Brace & Company, published 1997, →ISBN:

     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.’

• “minatory, adj.”, in Merriam-Webster.com Online Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster, 1996–present.

• “minatory”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.