0 to tell someone that you will kill or hurt them or cause problems if they do not do what you want: --
Changing patterns of agriculture are threatening the countryside.
[ + to infinitive ] They threatened to kill him unless he did as they asked.
They threatened the shopkeeper with a gun.
1 to tell someone that you will hurt or harm him or her, esp. if the person does not do something in particular: --
2 to warn of something unpleasant or unwanted: --
Because of continuing drought, millions are threatened with starvation.
She threatened legal action against the newspaper.
However, in circumstances when life itself is not threatened, the purpose becomes one of preventing, or at least minimising, injury and ill-health.
Liberal policy was unpatriotic because it recognised other national interests and threatened dissolution of the empire.
Many of them, perhaps, were children of the ladies who had threatened the archbishop's predecessor thirty years before.
Even so, the threatening waters do not retreat.
Many trilobites could enroll when threatened, just like the living woodlouse some of them even evolved locking devices to make their enrollment really secure.
Rather, they lived in practical uncertainty, often felt threatened, and then argued about the justice and permanence of the new order created for them.
Apart from doubts and hostility toward the notion of education for women, one incident threatened the whole venture.
He had benefited only recently from their influence when his position as abbot was threatened.
