[f. FROWN v. + -ING2.] That frowns; gloomy; stern; disapproving, threatening.
c. 1386. Chaucer, Clerk’s T., 300. And eke whan I say ya, ye say not nay, Neither by word ne frouning countenance: Swere this, and here I swere our alliance.
c. 1430. Lydg., Min. Poems, 245. Now frownyng cheer, now fressh of visage.
1567. Turberv., To a Gentlewoman from whome he tooke a Ring, 1. What needes this frowning face?
1659. D. Pell, Impr. Sea, 377. A frowning, raging, and rowling storm.
1736. Neal, Hist. Purit., III. 520. The General Assembly … sent at the same time two frowning letters.
1822. B. Cornwall, Poems, Modena. And o’er her many a frowning fold Of crimson shades her closed eyes.
1847. A. M. Gilliam, Trav. Mexico, 20. We entered the port of Vera Cruz, which is of difficult access, and were safely anchored under the frowning guns of the Castle San Juan de Ulloa.
1862. H. Marryat, Year in Sweden, II. 402. A deep ravine of frowning rocks.
b. attrib. in † frowning cloth, an imaginary frontlet supposed to be worn by a person when displeased.
1580. Lyly, Euphues (Arb.), 285. The gallery, where shee was solitaryly walking, with her frowning cloth, as sick lately of the solens.
