impend
English
Etymology
Borrowed from Latin impendere (“to hang over, to weigh out”).
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): /ɪmˈpɛnd/
Audio (RP) (file) - Rhymes: -ɛnd
Verb
impend (third-person singular simple present impends, present participle impending, simple past and past participle impended)
- (obsolete) To hang or be suspended over (something); to overhang.
- 1789, John Moore, Zeluco, Valancourt 2008, p. 210:
- 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.
- 1857, Tregelles, Samuel Prideaux, “עַל (Strong's H5921) definition (A)(3)(a)”, in Gesenius' Hebrew and Chaldee Lexicon, London: Samuel Bagster and Sons, retrieved 27 September 2015:
- When a thing really impends over another, e.g. when one stands at a fountain (עַל־עֵין), over which one really leans.
- 1789, John Moore, Zeluco, Valancourt 2008, p. 210:
- (intransitive) Figuratively to hang over (someone) as a threat or danger.
- (intransitive) To threaten to happen; to be about to happen, to be imminent.
- (obsolete) To pay.
Related terms
English terms derived from the Proto-Indo-European root *(s)pend- (0 c, 32 e)
Translations
be about to happen
|
Anagrams
- Mendip