menace

1. 1.

   something that is a source of danger

   “earthquakes are a constant threat in Japan”

   Synonymsthreat

   Broaderdanger

   Narroweryellow peril
2. 2.

   a threat or the act of threatening

   “he spoke with desperate menace”

   Broaderthreat

Other forms of menace

plural

menaces·

past tense

menaced·

present participle

menacing·

Forms marked · are formed by the regular rule rather than recorded in the source data. English keeps a few hundred irregulars and the rest follow the pattern, so the rule is right far more often than not — but it is a rule, and the mark says so.

Questions about menace

What does menace mean?

menace means "pose a threat to; present a danger to". That is the primary sense; the word has 5 in total, listed in full on this page.

How many syllables are in menace?

menace has 2 syllables: men-ace. The stress falls on "men". In IPA it is /ˈmɛnəs/.

What is another word for menace?

Close synonyms include endanger, jeopardize, jeopardise, threaten, imperil. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

Is menace a common word?

menace is banded "Familiar" — widely understood, used when the subject calls for it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.