daunting

Discouraging; inspiring fear.

Deathes daunting dart where so his buffet lights, / Shall shape no change within my friendly corse: / But dead or liue, in heauen, in earth, in hell, / I wilbe thine where so my carkase dwell.

As for his menacing and daunting threats / I nill regard him nor his Daniſh power: / For if he come to fetch her forth my Realme, / I will prouide him ſuch a banquet here.

Intimidatingly impressive; awe-inspiring, overwhelming.

[W]iſdome, much more all the excellencies of this Spirit) makes a mans face to ſhine; as the light of a Lanterne puts a luſtre upon the Lanterne, ſo the brightneſſe of theſe ſpirits puts a luſtre upon the men in whom they are. Men of ſuch ſpirts^([sic – meaning ſpirits]) as theſe are, have a daunting preſence in the eyes of thoſe who behold them.

She reached it soon after half-past two. She found its gloomy nineteenth-century façade, black with the smuts of ninety years, a little daunting, and mounted its broad steps in some trepidation. But she rang the bell hard and knocked firmly.

Appearing to be difficult; challenging.

It was a daunting task, but it was accomplished with some forward planning.

A trip of sixteen miles, through dark forests, in which they would not pass a single house, was an exploit sufficiently daunting for two such young and inexperienced boys. Love triumphs over fear and death; and these boys so dearly loved their father, that nothing was formidable to them, which they could do for him.

gerund of daunt.

Face to face with the true mountains, / I stood silently and still; / Drawing strength for fancy's dauntings, / From the air about the hill, / And from Nature's open mercies, and most debonaire goodwill.

But stigmatise it as we please there never was a great man without a strong will, and an infusion of self-reliance sufficient to raise him above the dauntings of opposition and reliance on props.

gerund of daunt.

Then came in two by two, other Troopes, whoſe onſets, and ouer-throwes, honours, and diſgraces, darings, and dauntings, merit an ample Chronicle, rather than an Abſtract; [...]