Etymology
1. O.E.
þreat "crowd, troop," also "oppression, menace," related to
þreotan "to trouble, weary," from P.Gmc.
*threutanan (cf. Ger.
verdrießen "to vex"), from PIE
*trud- "push, press" (cf. L.
trudere "to press, thrust," O.C.S.
trudu "oppression," M.Ir.
trott "quarrel, conflict"). Sense of "conditional declaration of hostile intention" was in O.E. The verb
threaten is O.E.
þreatnian;
threatening in the sense of "portending no good" is recorded from 1530.
2. From Middle English threten, from Old English þrēatian (“to press, oppress, repress, correct, threaten”), derived from Proto-Indo-European *trewd- (“to squeeze, push, press”). Cognate with Scots threit (“to threaten”), Dutch verdrieten (“to sadden, displease”), Middle Low German drēten (“to threaten”), German verdrießen (“to bother, vex”), Faroese tróta (“to run out”), Icelandic þrjóta (“to run out, end”), Norwegian tryte (“to run out, end”), Swedish tryda (“to run out”), Gothic 𐌿𐍃𐌸𐍂𐌹𐌿𐍄𐌰𐌽 (usþriutan, “to harass, torment”), Latin trūdō (“to push”), Albanian ndrydh (“to sprain, supress, withdraw”), Belarusian трудзіць (trudzicʹ, “to burden, tire”), Bulgarian тру̀дя (trùdja, “to work”), Czech trudit (“to toil, worry”), Polish trudzić (“to toil, worry”), Russian труди́ть (trudítʹ, “to burden, tire”), Serbo-Croatian trúditi (“to try, make and effot”), Ukrainian труди́ти (trudýty, “to toil, tire”). See: Scots '
threit', Dutch '
verdrieten', German, old spelling '
verdrießen', Faroese '
tróta', Icelandic '
þrjóta', Swedish '
tryda', Latin '
trūdō', Belarusan '
трудзіць', Bulgarian '
тру̀дя', Czech '
trudit', Polish '
trudzić', Russian '
труди́ть', Ukrainian '
труди́ти'.