Crossword clues for browbeat
Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Browbeat \Brow"beat`\, v. t. [imp. Browbeat; p. p. Browbeaten; p. pr. & vb. n. Browbeating.] To depress or bear down with haughty, stern looks, or with arrogant speech and dogmatic assertions; to abash or disconcert by impudent or abusive words or looks; to bully; as, to browbeat witnesses.
My grandfather was not a man to be browbeaten.
--W.
Irving.
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
"to bully," originally "to bear down with stern or arrogant looks," 1580s, from brow + beat (v.).\n\n[I]t appears from the earliest quotations ... that the brow in question was that of the beater, not of the beaten party; but it is not evident whether the meaning was 'to beat with one's (frowning) brows,' or 'to beat (?lower) one's brows at.'
[OED]
\nRelated: Browbeaten; browbeating.Wiktionary
alt. (context transitive English) To bully in an intimidating, bossy, or supercilious way. vb. (context transitive English) To bully in an intimidating, bossy, or supercilious way.
WordNet
v. be bossy towards; "Her big brother always bullied her when she was young" [syn: strong-arm, bully, bullyrag, ballyrag, boss around, hector, push around]
discourage or frighten with threats or a domineering manner; intimidate [syn: bully, swagger]
[also: browbeaten]
Usage examples of "browbeat".
A distance begun that day her brothers browbeat Cleo into betraying her.
Seven-Up and a warm smile that hints she can be as sympathetic to misunderstood husbands as to browbeaten wives.
He had been browbeaten and humiliated successively that morning by Colonel Cathcart, Colonel Korn and Corporal Whitcomb.
Before his eyes, Harry saw sections of paving lifted out, pulverized, toted away by the sackload by lines of trudging, browbeaten little men.
If the Colonel sings, if the shy, bald Admiral is browbeaten into spilling the beans to Congress, who will look after them then?
Igorina had browbeaten a couple of guards to carry Wazzer on a stretcher.
Henderson at this period, was not an envoy who could be browbeaten by the Germans.
This mission was accomplished without much trouble after Ribbentrop had browbeaten both sides.
Even those once known to support that right above all others had been browbeaten and tempted by preferment to adopt a different attitude.
Philippus-looking brown and extremely fit-had arrived from Sardinia, unofficially convoked the Senate, and browbeaten that cowed body into voting nonexistent public funds to give back to Sulla what the State had taken away.
The chair had served him for a decade before the damned sawbones and his sister had browbeaten him into using an airborne deathbed.
By his behavior in her presence, it was likely he was her browbeaten husband.
The eunuch was Yusif, the same pathetic specimen he had browbeaten on his last visit.
Calabria wheedling, remonstrating, cajoling and patronizing the new master by turns, now for his misguided notions of fairness in dealing with the striking miners, now for the uses of influence in getting ahead, breaking off for a highly theatrical interlude of mugging and arson and here came the playful glissando again as new comic possibilities emerged in the parade of petty thieves, rumpots, fugitives from wives and creditors and a brace of Chippewa Indians being cursorily questioned, pummeled, browbeaten, paid and fleeced as recruits for the Union army by the mine manager in his time away from raising stores of vermifuges, decorative sabres, trusses and mule feed cut with sand in the patriotic cause.
I may not have been a West Winger any longer, but I was not about to be summoned over there like some browbeaten summer intern.