The criminal was pacing threateningly towards me.

[99bottles]

The criminal was pacing threateningly towards me.

I know I could use walking threateningly towards me or approaching me threateningly. But, since I have used those verbs many times, I wonder whether I could use pace for the sake of variety. Or is the verb pace wrongly used here?

 

[Jemima23]

Not a teacher.

Cambridge dictionary defines pacing as "walking with regular steps in one direction and then back again, usually because you are worried or nervous", to me that says that it doesn't fit in your sentence. I know I wouldn't use it here. How about "advancing towards" or coming towards"?

 

[emsr2d2]

I wouldn't use "pacing" for the same reason Jemima23 gave. However, if I used "advancing", I wouldn't add "towards" because that's implied in the meaning of "advance".

 

[99bottles]

The criminal was advancing on me slowly and threateningly?

 

[Tarheel]

Yep. And menacingly would be good too.