Word.ws English Dictionary

How to use threaten in a sentence

40 example sentences · verb

Threaten means to make a threat against someone; to use threats. Example: “He threatened me with a knife.”

Examples of threaten by meaning

verbTo make a threat against someone; to use threats.

  • He threatened me with a knife.
  • Keeson's orders in those respects were very strict ; he had often threatened any one of his employés with instant dismissal if he found him in company with one of these touts.1904–1905, Baroness Orczy [i.e., Emma Orczy], “The Hocussing of Cigarette”, in The Case of Miss Elliott, London: T[homas] Fisher Unwin...

verbTo menace, or be dangerous.

  • The rocks threatened the ship's survival.

verbTo portend, or give a warning of.

  • The black clouds threatened heavy rain.

verbTo call into question the validity of (a belief, idea, or viewpoint); to challenge.

  • The new information threatened our original hypothesis.

verbTo be close to equaling or surpassing (a record, etc.); to challenge.

  • The player quickly surmised that things weren't kosher and the suddenly wiser ballplayer threatened the world record for the fifty-yard dash as he sought safety.2000, Lew Freedman, Diamonds in the Rough: Baseball Stories from Alaska, page 69

More sentences with threaten

  • My husband's constant harping about the condition of the house threatens to drive me to distraction.From the entry drive
  • Don't you threaten me, pal – I'll report you to the police.From the entry pal
  • Coral bleaching threatens to disrupt the population equilibria of the reef’s fishes.From the entry fishes
  • The amount of atmospheric pollution threatens a health crisis.From the entry amount
  • Robots may threaten low-skilled workers’ jobs, and AI may threaten high-skilled workers’ jobs, so I guess we'll all have a merry Christmas then!From the entry low-skilled
  • On this episode of Interstellar Voyagers From Uranus, our heroes encounter a planet where shrink rays threaten to trap them inside a terrarium as an alien's pets!From the entry shrink ray
  • Used to scream and shout and threaten to call the boydem when I showed my face.2013, Polly Courtney, Feral Youth, Troubador Publishing Ltd, →ISBN, page 11. From the entry boydem
  • “If ya give me chobble, mon, I gwann hang up!” he threatens.2013, Jack Teeter, chapter 7, in Billie the Kid. From the entry chobble
  • If contingency defines a realist ideal, then oversignification threatens that ideal.2012, Ulka Anjaria, Realism in the Twentieth-Century Indian Novel: Colonial Difference and Literary Form, Cambridge University Press…. From the entry oversignification
  • It threatens to become a torrent if the debt crisis continues to worsen.2011 December 21, Helen Pidd, “Europeans migrate south as continent drifts deeper into crisis”, in the Guardian. From the entry stream
  • Evolutionary traps can threaten populations and species if they result in widespread reductions in survival and reproduction.2010, Martin A. Schlaepfer, Paul W. Sherman, Michael C. Runge, “29: Decision Making, Environmental Change, and Population Persistence”, in…. From the entry evolutionary trap
  • The hypergreen leaves at the base of the iris thrive and threaten.2008, Saleema Nawaz, Mother Superior: Stories, Freehand Books, →ISBN. From the entry hypergreen
  • The bad cop was Lump, who would threaten and berate the prisoner.2005, James S. Hirsch, Two Souls Indivisible, HMH, →ISBN. From the entry good cop–bad cop
  • She'll fall out of love with you the moment you threaten us.2004, David Mitchell, Cloud Atlas, London: Sceptre (Hodder and Stoughton), →ISBN. From the entry larky
  • And if I don't want to - you threaten me by death?2004 October 11, Ondrej ondre Scerbej, “Meaning of "Parsifal"”, in humanities.music.composers.wagner (Usenet), archived from the original…. From the entry resignated
  • Ratfolk males don't yell and threaten and promise massive bloodshed unless they intend to deliver.2002, Glen Cook, Angry Lead Skies: A Garrett, P.I., Novel, Penguin, →ISBN. From the entry ratfolk
  • Oil interests threaten the Porcupine caribou herd -- the lifeblood of the Gwitchin people.1999, Raymond J. Parker, “A Natural Resource”, in Nature Canada, volumes 28-29, page 3. From the entry Gwitchin
  • The desert returns after you leave Keriya, and dunes periodically threaten the road.1997, Peter Neville-Hadley, China: the Silk Routes (Cadogan Guides), Globe Pequot Press, →ISBN, →OCLC, page 306. From the entry Keriya
  • The lid has been placed heavily on anyone who threatens to expose a fiery tongue.1991 October 5, Chris Moncrieff, “Politics Today”, in Lincolnshire Echo, Lincoln, Lincs, page 13. From the entry tediosity
  • By attacking these institutions and values the Left threatens us all, gay or straight, with totalitarianism.1976 December 18, Jack Peterson, “No 'Closet' Nazi”, in Gay Community News, volume 4, number 25, page 4. From the entry politicalization
  • Other times, they would simply threaten a flake and demand money.1973, Knapp Commission, New York, The Knapp Commission Report on Police Corruption, page 83. From the entry flake
  • One cannot profitably threaten to broadcast to others what is already known.1971, “Demand”, in Body Politic, number 1, page 6. From the entry profitably
  • The customer would split a gut and threaten to haul us into court.1966, Louis-Ferdinand C'Line, Louis Ferdinand Destouches, Ralph Manheim, Death on the Installment Plan, page 131. From the entry split a gut
  • Black, the president, didn't wax wroth and condemn, and threaten and talk of tyranny and Communists.1936, Dale Carnegie, How to Win Friends and Influence People, Part 3, Chapter 4. From the entry wroth
  • It is not that the sword-flourisher threatens himself only by calling forth another sword-flourisher to challenge him.1936, The Universalist Leader, volume 39, number 23, page 712. From the entry flourisher
  • A pus case that actually threatens neighboring parts should have interference—the abscess to be opened when ripe.1913, Edmund Carleton, Homoeopathy in Medicine and Surgery, Philadelphia, Pa.: Boericke & Tafel, page 36. From the entry knivesman
  • Yann LeCun, chief AI scientist at Meta, recently said it was “preposterous” to believe that an AI could threaten humanity.2023 November 25, Richard Waters, John Thornhill, quoting Yann LeCun, “Tech’s philosophical rift over AI”, in FT Weekend (Big Read…. From the entry renaissance
  • But for others, the investigations came to consume and even threaten their presidencies, at least for a time.2023 January 13, Peter Baker, “Presidents and Their Prosecutors”, in The New York Times. From the entry presidency
  • Many of the best key forwards also apply pressure and threaten at ground level and, at his best, Walker does likewise.2021 April 1, Cody Atkinson and Sean Lawson, “The changing face of battle between AFL full-forwards and full-backs”, in ABC News…. From the entry key forward
  • His retraction was equally Trumpian: I didn’t threaten anyone.2020 March 6, Garrett Epps, “Chuck Schumer Needs to Watch Himself”, in The Atlantic, archived from the original on 16 Mar 2020. From the entry Trumpian
  • We’ll see how good he looks when his wife gets around to him, I wonder will she threaten to cut him?"2017, Joan Brady, chapter 6, in The Cinderella Reflex, Poolbeg Press, page 87. From the entry trophy girlfriend
  • The corollary to this principle of Petrinity is that any entity that threatens or denies the papacy its primacy is anathema.2016, Jehangi Yezdi Malegam, “Pro-Papacy Polemic and the Purity of the Church: The Gregorian Reform”, in A Companion to the Medieval…. From the entry Petrinity
  • All are dejects, and all are drawn to the very places and things that threaten their own destruction.2013, Aalya Ahmad, Sean Moreland, Fear and Learning: Essays on the Pedagogy of Horror, page 236. From the entry deject
  • All this led Sotto to paint himself a victim, of “cyberbullying,” and threaten his critics with the now-infamous cybercrime bill.2012 November 9, Miguel Syjuco, “Something new to Sottocopy”, in Rappler. From the entry sottocopy

Meaning of threaten

  1. verb To make a threat against someone; to use threats.
  2. verb To menace, or be dangerous.
  3. verb To portend, or give a warning of.

Full definition of threaten

Questions about threaten in a sentence

How do you use threaten in a sentence?
Threaten is used as a verb. For example: “He threatened me with a knife.”
What is a short sentence with threaten?
“He threatened me with a knife.”
What does threaten mean?
Threaten means to make a threat against someone; to use threats.

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: threaten (page history and authors) and the entries each sentence comes from. Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the sentences, left out offensive ones and quotations older than 1900, and marked the word in each. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this page: “How to use threaten in a sentence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sentences/threaten. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.