menace
Americannoun
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something that threatens to cause evil, harm, injury, etc.; a threat.
Air pollution is a menace to health.
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a person whose actions, attitudes, or ideas are considered dangerous or harmful.
When he gets behind the wheel of a car, he's a real menace.
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an extremely annoying person.
verb (used with object)
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to utter or direct a threat against; threaten.
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to serve as a probable threat to; imperil.
overdevelopment that menaces our suburbs.
verb (used without object)
verb
noun
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literary a threat or the act of threatening
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something menacing; a source of danger
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informal a nuisance
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
-
menacesimple
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menacessimple
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have menacedperfect
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has menacedperfect
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am menacingprogressive
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are menacingprogressive
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is menacingprogressive
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have been menacingperfect progressive
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has been menacingperfect progressive
Past
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menacedsimple
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had menacedperfect
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was menacingprogressive
-
were menacingprogressive
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had been menacingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of menace
First recorded in 1300–50; Middle English manace, manance, from Middle French manace, menace, from Late Latin minācia “threat,” equivalent to mināc- (stem of mināx ) “jutting out, threatening” + -ia; verb from noun; see -ia
Explanation
If it's threatening you or otherwise posing some sort of danger, then it's a menace. Angry rabid dogs, smog clouds, and annoying little brothers are all probable menaces. The word menace works as both a noun and a verb, but it wasn't used to describe threatening or bothersome people until 1936. Before then, common menaces probably included things like the plague, locusts, and roving bands of pirate ships. Today, a bad reputation can menace an otherwise promising career, weeds can menace your garden, and burglars are a menace to society.
Vocabulary lists containing menace
May the 4th Be With You: Star Wars Words
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Vocabulary from the Lyrics of Kanye West
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"The Bells" by Edgar Allan Poe
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
The performance, perhaps intending to inject a note of potential menace, plays up Ru’s anger at the expense of his hurt — and comes off as grating and utterly unsympathetic.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 21, 2026
In adapting the premise for TV, series creator Nick Antosca dilutes the movies’ naked menace by pouring reasonable doubt into both Max’s profile and that of the Bowdens, the married lawyers behind his downfall.
From Salon ● Jul. 17, 2026
Popular culture has often portrayed the species as a dangerous menace, contributing to a reputation that many scientists argue is exaggerated.
From Science Daily ● Jun. 26, 2026
Sutton added: "He was sharp off the left, drifting inside to play quick, incisive passes. He was creative and cunning. He looked unburdened. He was a real menace with Jamal Musiala."
From BBC ● Jun. 15, 2026
The menace was coming very near now...Six out of ten!
From "And Then There Were None" by Agatha Christie
These might be helpful, anodyne retail chatbots; they also might be utter menaces like Google Docs’ Gemini pop-up.
From Salon ● Jun. 10, 2026
EU officials said that as part of the efforts they want to step up the mandatory registration of drones across the bloc to be able to better keep track of potential menaces.
From Barron's ● Feb. 11, 2026
The book’s most edifying compilations recount the Soviet people’s unconquerable yearning to live, create and love freely, despite the daily menaces of a police state and deafening propaganda.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Dec. 16, 2025
It is a disgrace, he says, that the energy firms can send out "menaces" like that over a problem of their making.
From BBC ● Feb. 14, 2025
I laughed in my sleeve at his menaces.
From "Jane Eyre" by Charlotte Brontë
Asian carp have taken over the Mississippi River and dozens of tributaries, where they have menaced native fish by eating much of their food.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 8, 2026
Even when the whole family is menaced, as in “Poltergeist,” the evil entities have a special yearning to possess little blonde girls.
From Salon ● Oct. 27, 2025
Not the craggy summit looking over the Owens Valley 10,000 feet below or the nearly vertical, several-hundred-foot drop that menaced just a few steps to the right.
From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 2, 2023
Sharks still loom large in the public imagination as deadly man-eaters, thanks to the 1975 blockbuster Jaws, in which a great white shark menaced swimmers off the coast of Massachusetts.
From BBC ● Jul. 20, 2023
I feel nothing, she whispered, as the ice hit her skin, as the wind beat against her, as the snow menaced around her.
From "Breadcrumbs" by Anne Ursu
In this sense, the Backrooms reveal how digital culture is beginning to reshape experiences traditionally associated with tourism, allowing for the mundane to become menacing.
From Science Daily ● Jul. 26, 2026
What makes France so menacing to any other team left in this World Cup is how total its control can be.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 9, 2026
The straw has a strange menacing string running through it and poking out of the tip, and the cup’s utility is squished into near-unrecognizability.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 10, 2026
And so Sam it was, but an eagle that was more comical than menacing, so as not to scare the kiddies and customers — a happy raptor.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 6, 2026
Smoke hung in the village like a menacing fog.
From "Willodeen" by Katherine Applegate
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
