impendere

Impendere is a Latin verb meaning to hang over, to overhang, or to threaten; it can also convey the sense of being imminent. It is formed from the prefix in- and the verb pendere, “to hang” or “to weigh.” In classical Latin, impendere is used with the subject that bears the hanging or looming threat on another thing, as in periculum impendet, commonly understood as “danger impends” or “danger threatens.” The sense of a physical overhang can appear in descriptions of objects or landscapes that literally hang over another.

In English, impend is the direct descendant of impendere and has similar senses: to be about to happen or to threaten. The verb is now mostly found in formal or literary contexts. Common modern uses describe looming events or dangers, for example, “an impending disaster” or “impending doom.” The verb forms are impend (present), impended (past), and impending (present participle/gerund).

The word’s most prominent derivative in everyday English is the adjective impending. The root pend- meaning “to hang” or “to weigh” appears in many related Latin-based words, such as pendant and pendulum, though those terms are not semantically related to the sense of threat. Impend remains a relatively rare, largely literary term in contemporary usage, with its core meaning centered on something looming or about to occur. See also pendere and related Latin roots for broader etymology.