Impend

//ɪmˈpɛnd// verb

verb ·Uncommon ·Advanced level

Definitions

Verb
  1. 1
    To hang or be suspended over (something); to overhang. obsolete

    "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."

  2. 2
    be imminent or about to happen wordnet
  3. 3
    To hang over (someone) as a threat or danger. figuratively, intransitive
  4. 4
    To threaten to happen; to be about to happen, to be imminent. intransitive

    "impending doom"

  5. 5
    To pay. obsolete

Synonyms

All synonyms
approachawaitbe as expectedbe imminentbe in storebeetle

Example

More examples

"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."

Etymology

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

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.