Impending

//ɪmˈpɛndɪŋ// adj, noun, verb

adj, noun, verb ·Moderate ·College level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    Something that impends or threatens; an expected event.

    "Speed of locomotion and staying power in horse and others; the sense of smell in dog and in most other creatures (a far subtler and more analytical faculty than is man's mere perception of odour). Even an uncanny supra-natural sense of natural impendings, catastrophe, earthquake and flood, lacking in man, is found in simpler creatures."

Verb
  1. 1
    present participle and gerund of impend form-of, gerund, participle, present

    "The hurricane is impending."

Adjective
  1. 1
    Approaching; drawing near; about to happen or expected to happen. not-comparable

    "I have no time right now because of an impending paper submission deadline."

Adjective
  1. 1
    close in time; about to occur wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
close at handimminentimminentin the offingproximateabout to be

Example

More examples

"The big promotion of that company's stock was just a cover-up to hide their impending bankruptcy."

Etymology

From impend + -ing.

More for "impending"

SynonymsSentencesPronunciationTranslate

Next best steps

Find stronger synonymsSee usage examplesCheck pronunciationBrowse writing guides

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