Word.ws English Dictionary

impend

/ɪmˈpɛnd/

impend verb: to hang or be suspended over (something); to overhang.

Verb

impend (third-person singular simple present impends, present participle impending, simple past and past participle impended)

  1. (obsolete) To hang or be suspended over (something); to overhang.
    • The Earl had often heard of a rich citizen […] and the peculiar charm of a little snug rotunda which he had just finished on the verge of his ground, and which impended the great London road.1789, John Moore, Zeluco, Valancourt, published 2008, page 210
    • when a thing really impends over another, e.g. when one stands at a fountain (עַל־עֵין), over which one really leans
      When a thing really impends over another, e.g. when one stands at a fountain (עַל־עֵין), over which one really leans.1857, Samuel Prideaux Tregelles, “עַל (Strong's H5921) definition (A)(3)(a)”, in Gesenius' Hebrew and Chaldee Lexicon, London: Samuel Bagster and Sons, retrieved 27 Sep 2015
  2. (figuratively, intransitive) To hang over (someone) as a threat or danger.
  3. (intransitive) To threaten to happen; to be about to happen, to be imminent.
    • impending doom
    • I, the mother of the only surnamed Glendinning, I feel now as though I had borne the last of a swiftly to be extinguished race. For swiftly to be extinguished is that race, whose only heir but so much as impends upon a deed of shame.1852, Herman Melville, Pierre; or The Ambiguities
  4. (obsolete) To pay.

impend meaning in Urdu, Bengali and Kannada

impend in Urdu

کھٹکا ہونا, سر پر لٹکنا

impend in Bengali

আসন্ন হওয়া, মাথার ওপর ঝুলে থাকা

impend in Kannada

ಸನ್ನಿಹಿತವಾಗಿರು, ಆಸನ್ನವಾಗಿರು, ಒಡನೆಯೇ ಸಂಭವಿಸುವಂತಿರು

Forms of impend

third-person singular presentimpends
present participleimpending
past participleimpended
pastimpended

Origin of impend

Borrowed from Latin impendere (“to hang over, to weigh out”), 1590s.

Words that rhyme with impend

48 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about impend

What does impend mean?
Impend means to hang or be suspended over (something); to overhang.
What is impend in Urdu?
Impend in Urdu is کھٹکا ہونا, سر پر لٹکنا. See Impend meaning in Urdu.
What part of speech is impend?
Impend is a verb.
How do you pronounce impend?
Impend is pronounced /ɪmˈpɛnd/.
What is the past tense of impend?
The past tense of impend is impended.

Words near impend in the dictionary

  1. impellingness
  2. impellor
  3. impellors
  4. impels
  5. impen
  6. impend
  7. impended
  8. impendence
  9. impendencies
  10. impendency
  11. impendent

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: impend (page history and authors); impend (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); Impend (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); impend (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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