empty threat
noun
: a threat that someone does not really mean
Don't make empty threats that you have no intention of backing up with action.
… the Witch of the West looks, in this scene anyhow, curiously frail and impotent, obliged to mouth empty threats …—
Salman Rushdie
Salman RushdieExamples of empty threat in a Sentence
Recent Examples on the Web
Cuban leaders know that Graham is not making empty threats.
—Timothy Nerozzi, The Washington Examiner, 3 Mar. 2026
It’s been ratcheted up by politics, with empty threats of claiming Canada as the 51st state and crippling tariffs that have soured relationships between normally hospitable people.
—Dana O’Neil, CNN Money, 22 Feb. 2026
His empty threats did little more than validate the regime’s impulse to destroy the enemy within.
—Omid Memarian, The Atlantic, 25 Jan. 2026
Cuban intelligence might have gotten too complacent in believing that Trump’s threats against Maduro were just that, an empty threat, comparing them with similar talk from other presidents against Cuba for more than six decades, experts say.
—Nora Gámez Torres, Miami Herald, 7 Jan. 2026
Educators have argued the district’s assertions are empty threats given that staffing is already an issue.
—Sierra Lopez, Mercury News, 5 Dec. 2025
Gallego called it an empty threat.
—Ronald J. Hansen, AZCentral.com, 26 Sep. 2025
Experts generally view these calls for the return of Alaska as an empty threat, but caution against what the Russian nationalist sentiment signals.
—Solcyré Burga, Time, 14 Aug. 2025
The Maduro regime, for its part, correctly estimated that the American bluster amounted to empty threats.
—Moisés Naím, Foreign Affairs, 28 Sep. 2021
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Timothy Nerozzi, The Washington Examiner, 3 Mar. 2026
It’s been ratcheted up by politics, with empty threats of claiming Canada as the 51st state and crippling tariffs that have soured relationships between normally hospitable people.
—Dana O’Neil, CNN Money, 22 Feb. 2026
His empty threats did little more than validate the regime’s impulse to destroy the enemy within.
—Omid Memarian, The Atlantic, 25 Jan. 2026
Cuban intelligence might have gotten too complacent in believing that Trump’s threats against Maduro were just that, an empty threat, comparing them with similar talk from other presidents against Cuba for more than six decades, experts say.
—Nora Gámez Torres, Miami Herald, 7 Jan. 2026
Educators have argued the district’s assertions are empty threats given that staffing is already an issue.
—Sierra Lopez, Mercury News, 5 Dec. 2025
Gallego called it an empty threat.
—Ronald J. Hansen, AZCentral.com, 26 Sep. 2025
Experts generally view these calls for the return of Alaska as an empty threat, but caution against what the Russian nationalist sentiment signals.
—Solcyré Burga, Time, 14 Aug. 2025
The Maduro regime, for its part, correctly estimated that the American bluster amounted to empty threats.
—Moisés Naím, Foreign Affairs, 28 Sep. 2021
Cite this Entry
“Empty threat.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/empty%20threat. Accessed 31 Mar. 2026.
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