[see -ING2.]
1. That forbids, in senses of the vb.
1573. Baret, Alv., F 849. Forbidding, vetans.
1667. Milton, P. L., II. 473.
| But they | |
| Dreaded not more th’ adventure then his voice | |
| Forbidding. |
2. esp. That forbids, or disinclines to, a nearer approach; repellent, repulsive, uninviting: a. chiefly of a person, his manner, looks, etc.
1712. Budgell, Spect., No. 301, 14 Feb., ¶ 2. She then contracted that awful Cast of the Eye and forbidding Frown, which she had not yet laid aside, and has still all the Insolence of Beauty without its Charms.
1717. Berkeley, Tour in Italy, 3 June, Wks. 1871, IV. 560. Doors and entrances of the houses dirty and forbidding here and elsewhere.
1837. M. Donovan, Dom. Econ., II. 199. It [the sturgeon] is a forbidding-looking creature, and has along its back three rows of hard horny knobs, which give it a formidable appearance, although its disposition is mild, and even cowardly.
1840. Dickens, Old C. Shop, iii. The child was closely followed by an elderly man of remarkably hard features and forbidding aspect, and so low in stature as to be quite a dwarf, though his head and face were large enough for the body of a giant.
1863. Fr. A. Kemble, Resid. in Georgia, 21. I do not know that I ever saw any winged creature of so forbidding an aspect as these same turkey-buzzards.
b. of a country, sea-coast, the weather, etc.
1726. Shelvocke, Voy. round World (1757), 280. Although the land is so desart and forbidding, the sea about it affords a very plentiful quantity of two or three sorts of excellent fish, of such kinds as I never saw before.
1856. Kane, Arct. Expl., II. xxvi. 264. We saw the same forbidding wall of belt-ice as at Sutherland and Hakluyt.
1860. Merc. Marine Mag., VII. 262. The coast … is exceedingly rocky and forbidding.
1887. T. Hardy, Woodlanders, II. i. 8. The morning looked forbidding enough when she stealthily edged forth.
Hence Forbiddingly, adv.; Forbiddingness.
1848. Craig, Forbiddingly.
1880. Kinglake, Crimea, VI. vi. 75. The Careenage Ravine, though forbiddingly hard to cross, could with much more ease be ascended.
1883. E. P. Roe, Nature’s Serial Story, in Harper’s Mag., LXVIII. Dec., 45/1. The Beacon hills on the farther side frown forbiddingly through the intervening northern gale, sweeping southward into the mountain gorge.
