impending

English

Etymology

From impend +‎ -ing.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ɪmˈpɛndɪŋ/
• Rhymes: -ɛndɪŋ

Adjective

impending (not comparable)

1. Approaching; drawing near; about to happen or expected to happen.

   Synonyms: imminent, in the offing, proximate; see also Thesaurus:impending

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

   • 2021 December 7, Jesse Hassenger, “Leonardo DiCaprio and Jennifer Lawrence cope with disaster in the despairing satire Don’t Look Up”, in AV Club‎^[1]:

     Randall and Kate aren’t satirical characters. They’re rational thinkers who unwittingly stumble into a Dr. Strangelove type of situation when they discover mankind’s impending doom, and team up with Dr. Teddy Oglethorpe (Rob Morgan) to report their findings to President Orlean (Meryl Streep).

Related terms

English terms derived from the Proto-Indo-European root *(s)pend- (0 c, 36 e)

Translations

about to happen

• Bulgarian: предстоящ (bg) (predstojašt)
• Catalan: imminent (ca)
• Czech: blížící se
• Dutch: nakend (nl)
• Esperanto: antaŭstaranta
• French: imminent (fr)
• German: bevorstehend (de)
• Maori: raraka (refers to misfortune), whano
• Persian: قریب‌الوقوع (qarib-olvoqu')
• Plautdietsch: dreiwent
• Portuguese: iminente (pt)
• Russian: приближа́ющийся (ru) (približájuščijsja), надвига́ющийся (ru) (nadvigájuščijsja), предстоя́щий (ru) (predstojáščij)
• Sanskrit: भविष्य (sa) (bhaviṣya)
• Spanish: inminente (es), impendiente
• Swedish: hotande (sv), förestående (sv), kommande (sv)
• Ukrainian: навислий m (navyslyj), той, що наближається m (toj, ščo nablyžajetʹsja), той, що насувається m (toj, ščo nasuvajetʹsja)
• Yiddish: באַלדיק (baldik)

Verb

impending

1. present participle and gerund of impend

   The hurricane is impending.

Noun

impending (plural impendings)

1. Something that impends or threatens; an expected event.
   • 1934, Arabella Kenealy, The Human Gyroscope:

     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.

   • 1994, Steve Garvey, quoted in 2000, Nicholas Barnes, Ainin H. Garvey, The Lost Writings of Steve Garvey (page 23)

     Although I do think about death quite regularly, my intense fear of lesser impendings has taught me that the only way I will survive it is to remain objective […]