Definition of "loom" []

• To come into view as a massive, distorted, or indistinct image: "I faced the icons that loomed through the veil of incense” ( Fergus M. Bordewich). See Synonyms at appear. (verb-intransitive)
• To appear to the mind in a magnified and threatening form: "Stalin looms over the whole human tragedy of 1930-1933” ( Robert Conquest). (verb-intransitive)
• To seem imminent; impend: Revolution loomed but the aristocrats paid no heed. (verb-intransitive)
• A distorted, threatening appearance of something, as through fog or darkness. (noun)
• An apparatus for making thread or yarn into cloth by weaving strands together at right angles. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "Would the fact that the firings came in the middle of the president's term loom quite so large?"
• "With the Court on the sidelines, the powers of the president of the Senate will once again loom large."
• "Her loom is indeed an heirloom, and the simple contrivance is often elaborately carved, it being the pastime of lovers of successive generations to make fresh carving on the fair one's loom."