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Browbeat   /brˈaʊbˌit/   Listen
Browbeat

verb
(past browbeat; past part. browbeaten; pres. part. browbeating)
1.
Be bossy towards.  Synonyms: ballyrag, boss around, bully, bullyrag, hector, push around, strong-arm.
2.
Discourage or frighten with threats or a domineering manner; intimidate.  Synonyms: bully, swagger.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Browbeat" Quotes from Famous Books



... quietly submitted to the laws of the realm. His counsel behaved like men of consummate abilities in their profession; they exerted themselves with equal industry, eloquence, and erudition, in their endeavours to perplex the truth, browbeat the evidence, puzzle the judge, and mislead the jury; but the defendant found himself wofully disappointed in the deposition of Trapwell's journeyman, whom the solicitor pretended to have converted to his interest. This witness, as ...
— The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom, Complete • Tobias Smollett

... and at the inquest, was this: As they talked further together, after Michael left the room, the Vicar went on to browbeat him shamefully about the new chimes, vowing they should never play, never be heard; at last, rising in an access of passion, the Parson struck him (the Captain) in the face. He returned the blow—who wouldn't return it?—and the Vicar fell. He believed ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 1, January, 1891 • Various

... measure. Her rare beauty, her unstudied pose, her slender elegance, the quiet harmonies of her costume—each and all made their appeal. He even waited for her reply, compelling it by some subtle transference of the knowledge that he would not endeavor to browbeat or ...
— One Wonderful Night - A Romance of New York • Louis Tracy

... feel like kissing them and sending them to bed. And the airs they put on! One of their soldiers happened to elbow a lieutenant the other day, and the chap ran him through with his sword, and no one called him to account. The officers jostle and browbeat any civilian who will submit to it, and then try to get him into a duel, but I believe they're a cowardly lot at bottom. No man of real courage would bluster all ...
— Captain Jinks, Hero • Ernest Crosby

... the motion in the coarse and savage style of which he was a master; but he soon found that it was not quite so easy to browbeat the proud and powerful barons of England in their own hall, as to intimidate advocates whose bread depended on his favour or prisoners whose necks were at his mercy. A man whose life has been passed in attacking and domineering, whatever ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... tears flow, and yield once more to depression and apathy. The house was stronger than she. But—but—only stronger, surely, if she consented to turn craven and give way to it?—Whereupon she consciously, of set purpose, defied the house, denied its right to browbeat thus and enslave her. For had not she this afternoon, up on the moorland, found a finer manner of mourning than it imposed, a manner at once more noble and so more consonant with the temper and achievements of her beloved dead? She believed ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet

... never content to let a pupil fail and sit down. She nagged and browbeat poor Nellie until the girl lost her nerve and began to cry. By that time the other girls were all angry and upset, and that physics recitation ...
— The Girls of Central High Aiding the Red Cross - Or Amateur Theatricals for a Worthy Cause • Gertrude W. Morrison

... course it shocked her for you to make such a charge against her. It would frighten any woman. By God, it's an outrage. You come here and try to browbeat Miss Harriman when she's alone. You ask her impudent questions, as good ...
— Tangled Trails - A Western Detective Story • William MacLeod Raine

... that I blame people for things. There are times when it seems as if we were all puppets, pulled this way or that, without control of our own movements. Hamlet was able to browbeat Rosencrantz and Guildenstern with his business of the pipe; but if they had been in a position to answer they might have told him that it required far less skill to play upon a man than any other ...
— Indian Summer • William D. Howells

... hair stand on end, make one's blood run cold, make one's teeth chatter; take away one's breath, stop one's breath; make one tremble &c. haunt; prey on the mind, weigh on the mind. put in fear, put in bodily fear; terrorize, intimidate, cow, daunt, overawe, abash, deter, discourage; browbeat, bully; threaten &c. 909. Adj. fearing &c. v.; frightened &c. v.; in fear, in a fright &c. n.; haunted with the fear of &c. n.; afeard[obs3]. afraid, fearful; timid, timorous; nervous, diffident, coy, faint- hearted, tremulous, shaky, afraid of one's shadow, apprehensive, restless, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus

... any one else had undertaken this job in our place, we should have deserved to be shut out of heaven for it. Thinking twice about it! I'm ashamed of myself. Why,—why,—he looks like a ghost. But he won't look that way long! We aren't here to browbeat a man, and kill him ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 12, October, 1858 • Various

... and boaster of famed examples . . . and sets rigid bounds to that liberty to which genius often owes its supreme glory. . . Born originals, how comes it to pass that we die copies?. . . Let not great examples or authorities browbeat thy reason into too great a diffidence of thyself. . . While the true genius is crossing all public roads into fresh untrodden ground; he [the imitative writer], up to the knees in antiquity, is treading the sacred footsteps of great examples with the blind ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Eighteenth Century • Henry A. Beers

... as representing my views, during the School Board election of 1888. I had against me the Solicitor-General, Sir Edward Clarke, at the bar, and Baron Huddleston on the bench; both counsel and judge did their best to browbeat me and to use the coarsest language, endeavouring to prove that by advocating the limitation of the family I had condemned chastity as a crime. Five hours of brutal cross-examination left my denial of such teachings unshaken, and even the pleadings of the judge for the clergyman, defending ...
— Annie Besant - An Autobiography • Annie Besant

... range horse to rustle or starve. Hardest work in the world—but he don't know it, or money wouldn't hire him to lift his hand. He thinks it's play. Not one out of ten but what prides himself that he can't be browbeat into doing a tap of work. Ask him to cut a stick of firewood and he'll arch his back and laugh at you scornful like. ...
— The Settling of the Sage • Hal G. Evarts



Words linked to "Browbeat" :   inveigle, cajole, palaver, intimidate, domineer, tyrannise, coax, push around, wheedle, tyrannize, blarney, sweet-talk



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