impend

UK/ɪmˈpɛnd/US/ɪmˈpɛnd/

verbC2Very rare — outside the 30,000 commonest English words, so you will meet it in writing rather than in speech — impending sits at #8,068Too rare in one of the two pools to compare — fewer than 20 uses in speech or in writing

Other forms: impending

To impend is to be about to happen, usually something bad. An impending crisis, impending doom, the impending storm.

The participle is the only common form, and impending always attaches to something unwelcome. The Latin means to hang over, which is exactly the feeling the word describes.

Definitions of impend

1verbimpendTo be about to happen, usually something bad.C2
“As the river kept rising, the villagers felt that disaster impended.”

impend is a approaching.

Where it comes from

Latin impendere means to hang over, from in plus pendere, to hang.

Proto-Indo-European
*(s)pend-
Latin
impendere — to hang over, to weigh out
English, today
impend

Borrowed from Latin impendere (“to hang over, to weigh out”), 1590s.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

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