Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
Wiktionary
1 bullying; extortionate. 2 (context usually figuratively English) coercive, employing force. v
1 To bully; to intimidate. 2 (context often figuratively English) To coerce, to muscle.
WordNet
v. handle roughly; "He was strong-armed by the policemen"
be bossy towards; "Her big brother always bullied her when she was young" [syn: bully, browbeat, bullyrag, ballyrag, boss around, hector, push around]
use physical force against; "They strong-armed me when I left the restaurant"
Usage examples of "strong-arm".
One look and Mayberry swung to Sleeper, only to see his strong-arm man standing with open mouth and lowered gun.
Then I ordered Michaelis and Henty, our best strong-arm men, to take the Russians out of the game.
Nor did he fly in the face of the augurs, or employ strong-arm tactics.
I crashed the eye, shooting it for no apparent reason except that it might find out where I was going, and he decided that whatever I was doing had to be a hell of a lot more interesting and important than strong-arming welshers for the Ginza, which was his main source of income at that point.
But it seems that even when they are kids they have very little use for each other, and after they grow up and Johnny gets on the strong-arm squad, he never misses a chance to push Big Jule around, and sometimes trying to boff Big Jule with his blackjack, and it is well known to one and all that before Big Jule leaves town the last time, he takes a punch at Johnny Brannigan, and Johnny swears he will never rest until he puts Big Jule where he belongs, although where Big Jule belongs, Johnny does not say.
But the rest, the neighborhood Black Hand terrorists, the free-lance shylocks, the strong-arm bookmakers operating without the proper, that is to say paid, protection of the legal authorities, would have to go.
He was a “special” and as such commanded a high salary but did not have his own living, a bookmaking or strong-arm operation.
Gone, in one shot, because of the threats and strong-arming of you and Governor Celter for shortcuts.
To his left Conan saw a group of four men who looked more unsavory, probably cutpurses or strong-arm thieves.
Given the minimal sexual dimorphism of the Delkasu species, strong-arm types were as likely as not to be female.
Another race against time, but he grudgingly admitted Corsi got further with a little strong-arming than two hours of trading, no matter how profitable.
We were caught together in the same long series of school-boy scrapes--and were usually ferruled together by the same strong-armed teacher.
They had assumed it was another gang execution, and had questioned hoodlums with records in the rackets and a history of strong-arm.
Danny caught an address: 1611 South Bonnie Brae, the Sheriff’s Central Vice operations front, where recalcitrant bookies got strong-armed, recalcitrant hookers got serviced, protections kickbacks got tallied.
To celebrate the Emperor's Triumph she was planning an act of reckless delirium: our strong-armed queen of the washtubs was plunging into wedlock.