Other forms: menacing, menaced, menaces
A menace is a threat — someone or something that could do real harm. The dog that goes for cyclists, the slab of ice hanging off the roof, the driver reading his phone at sixty.
The word does heavy and light work. Serious: a menace to public safety, the menace of drought. Light, almost fond: your four-year-old nephew who empties every drawer is a little menace. Menace is also uncountable when you mean the quality itself — there was menace in his voice, no article in front. There is a verb, to menace, meaning to threaten, and it is stiff and literary; the adjective menacing does far more of the everyday work, as in a menacing sky.
1nounmenaceA person or thing that threatens harm.
“That crumbling wall is a menace to everyone who walks past.”
2nounqualityA threatening quality or atmosphere.
“There was a quiet menace in the way he said her name.”
3nounannoyingA person who is annoying rather than truly dangerous.
“My little brother was a menace at family dinners.”
4verbthreatenTo threaten someone or something.
“Storm clouds menaced the coast all afternoon.”
menace is a threat.
Menace came through Old French from Latin minācia, 'a threat', built on mināx, 'threatening'. Behind those stands a Proto-Indo-European root about standing out and jutting forward — the same picture as something looming over you before it falls.
Proto-Indo-European
*men- (stand out)
Latin
minācia — threat, menace
Old French
manace
Middle English
manace
English, today
menace
From Middle English manace, from Old French manace, menace, &c., from Latin minācia (“threat, menace”), from Latin mināx (“threatening”) + -ia.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA
Practised in A Song of Ice and Fire