adv. [f. prec. + -LY2.] In a threatening manner; menacingly.
1601. Shaks., All’s Well, II. iii. 85. The honor sir that flames in your faire eyes, Before I speake too threatningly replies.
1819. Wordsw., ‘Departing summer hath assumed,’ vii. Woe! woe to Tyrants! from the lyre Broke threateningly.
1857. W. Collins, Dead Secret, V. iii. The booming of the surf sounding threateningly near in … the fog.
So Threateningness.
1891. Atkinson, Last of Giant Killers, 239. The suddenness of the action, and the threateningness of it.
1894. Robert Maclay, in Democrat & Chronicle (Rochester, NY), 14 Nov., 1/3. There is a thick, murky, ominous, typhoonish, threateningness in the atmosphere just now, and it looks very much as if the Japanese were going to succeed in carrying out their threat to capture Peking.
