menacer French · revision 16865

− ''Menacier quelqu'un de'' with an infinitive, threatening someone with an act, is in the ''Couronnement de Louis'' (about 1135).^(TLFi) About 1200 a thing could threaten too, in ''manecier trebuchement'' “to threaten to fall”, ''menacer ruine'' “to be on the verge of collapse” is recorded by the Académie in 1694, after Montaigne's ''menaçant sa ruyne''.^(TLFi)^(GLLF 1989)^(Littré 1873) A proverb of the 15th century says ''menacez vivent, et decollez meurent'' “the threatened live and the beheaded die”.^(Littré 1873) The adjective [[menaçant]] is said of the weather in Rousseau (1762).^(TLFi)