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Browbeat   Listen
verb
Browbeat  v. t.  (past browbeat; past part. browbeaten; pres. part. 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."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Browbeat" Quotes from Famous Books



... burst into the palace and put the women under arrest. The pent-up Revolution at last had burst—anarchy howled around the capital—the isolated Czar was captive, and plotting princelings joined hands with puny lawyers to browbeat courageous women and drive the ...
— Rescuing the Czar - Two authentic Diaries arranged and translated • James P. Smythe

... me," said the voice crisply. "You'd found out there were humans involved in this business. It was important that the fact be suppressed. I tried to browbeat you, which was a mistake. While I was talking to you your suspicion was reported on short wave by the Wild Life driver. I tried to overawe you. You're the wrong kind of man for that. But everything can be explained. Everything! ...
— Operation Terror • William Fitzgerald Jenkins

... against 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 may ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... fellow as the squire should and could laugh and make others laugh. For the lack of wit the colonel had recourse to insolence, and went on from one impertinence to another, till the squire, enraged, declared that he would not be browbeat by any lord's nephew or jackanapes colonel that ever wore a head; and as he spoke, tremendous in his ire, Squire Burton brandished high the British horsewhip. At this critical moment, as it has been asserted by some of the bystanders, the colonel quailed and backed ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. VII - Patronage • Maria Edgeworth

... comin' out there, Polenski! I'll show you who's the man here! You Hunnyacks try to browbeat me! ...
— The Gibson Upright • Booth Tarkington

... ready and willing, an' do all that's asked you—you'll soon find the differ 'twixt the men and a few petty officers an' 'prentices half out their time. The men 'll soon make a sailor of you: you'll soon see what a seaman is; you'll larn ten times the knowledge; an', add to that, you'll not be browbeat and ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 1, August 1850 - of Literature, Science and Art. • Various

... spirit arose. A human soul was involved, and no man, be he lawyer or lover, should browbeat ...
— The Opened Shutters • Clara Louise Burnham

... interfere in my affairs? You don't think of me when you go down to browbeat Charlie Stracey; you don't think of what would have been said of me had Frank hit him, and it had all come out in the papers." Maggie said no more; she saw she had gone too far. Willy sat puffing at his pipe; but when her father spoke of a certain investment that had not turned out as well ...
— Spring Days • George Moore

... business. Having failed in your other project, through the death of Del Norte, your fertile brain has originated this daring, yet foolish, scheme. Do you think you are dealing with children? Did you fancy you could frighten or browbeat me into paying you money before I had thoroughly investigated this Jalisco business and sifted it to the bottom? Why, you know that were you in my place you would not give up a dollar on such a demand. Take him away, Hagan, and be quick about it, or I swear I'll telephone ...
— Frank Merriwell's Pursuit - How to Win • Burt L. Standish

... and little speech, Slow, stubborn countrymen of heath and plain, Now have ye shown these insolent again That which to Caesar's legions ye could teach, That slow-provok'd is long-provok'd. May each Crass Caesar learn this of the Keltic grain, Until at last they reckon it in vain To browbeat us who hold ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various

... go at once and browbeat Jack (who's never seen the lady you know) into admiring her at pain ...
— The Lightning Conductor Discovers America • C. N. (Charles Norris) Williamson and A. M. (Alice Muriel)

... has a singularly nettling manner with some people which must add, I should think, to this unpopularity. He seems sweepingly satisfied with himself and his opinions, which are mostly of a challenging nature. He does not discuss but attempts to browbeat. His voice is an argument, and the expression on his face and the fire in his eyes suggest the street corner. He would have greatly distressed a man like Matthew Arnold, for the only method against such didactics is to send for the ...
— Painted Windows - Studies in Religious Personality • Harold Begbie

... said, it was a mistake for a man to allow events to browbeat him. He ought to fight back, hitting where he could. An event, once in a while, was strangely a coward. Besides that, if Destiny found a man always ready to strip, she came after a while to accord to him the courtesies of a duellist, and if he were ...
— Dwellers in the Hills • Melville Davisson Post

... browbeat a female witness, told her she had brass enough to make a saucepan. The woman retorted, "and you have ...
— The Jest Book - The Choicest Anecdotes and Sayings • Mark Lemon

... shown an interest comparable to mine? I may say I have devoted my entire energy to her affairs, and with disinterestedness. I have made myself felt. Will you mention who else these cutthroats have tried to browbeat and frighten? They know that my theories and conclusions are a menace to them! I got 'em in a panic, sir—presently some fellow will lose his nerve and light out for the tall timber—and it will be just Judge Slocum Price who's ...
— The Prodigal Judge • Vaughan Kester

... to hear it," and the lawyer looked grave. "Do you not see that if this witness is browbeat—is disbelieved, and if it be shown that you, the claimant, was—forgive my saying it—intimate with a brother of such a character, why the whole thing might be made to look like perjury and conspiracy. If we stop here it ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 5 • Edward Bulwer Lytton

... they have been waked up. You will please attend that conference, Mr. Farr. We have only a short month before the state convention, and we must bring there at least a respectable number of delegates whom Symonds Dodd cannot bribe or browbeat." ...
— The Landloper - The Romance Of A Man On Foot • Holman Day

... and rubbed his hands at the admission. "But I'm going to find out. So, probably, is Brodie. Now, look here, Honeycutt; I haven't come to browbeat you as Brodie did. I am for making you a straight business proposition. If you know anything, I stand ready to buy your knowledge. In ...
— The Everlasting Whisper • Jackson Gregory

... Satronian mansion the lackeys were insolent and it needed all Agathemer's tact and self-control, and all mine to browbeat them into ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White

... 'Oh, well,' he said, 'if you invoke the sacred names of Power.... But I don't call it fair play. Especially as you know perfectly well, and just want to browbeat me into telling lies. I shall not tell lies. I shall ...
— The Magic World • Edith Nesbit

... risk a good place for the sake of justice and humanity. Accordingly, while he was in secret drawing up a refutation of the whole romance of the Popish plot, he declared in public that the truth of the story was as plain as the sun in heaven, and was not ashamed to browbeat, from the seat of judgment, the unfortunate Roman Catholics who were arraigned before him for their lives. He had at length reached the highest post in the law. But a lawyer, who, after many years devoted to professional labour, engages in politics for the first time at an advanced period ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... the planters the idea of a negro's testimony being as good as a white man's is very unpleasant, and occasional attempts are made to bully and browbeat a colored witness upon the stand. The attempt is never made twice. Once I pitted a lawyer against a negro witness, held the parties on the cross-examination, and the lawyer was badly beaten. Some of the freedmen can conduct a ...
— Report on the Condition of the South • Carl Schurz

... assemblies, but had been deterred by fear. Then came Mr Stumfold in person, and, of course, nothing about the assembly rooms was said by him. He made himself very pleasant, and Miss Mackenzie almost resolved to put herself into his hands. He did not look sour at her, nor did he browbeat her with severe words, nor did he exact from her the performance of any hard duties. He promised to find her a seat in his church, and told her what were the hours of service. He had three "Sabbath services," but ...
— Miss Mackenzie • Anthony Trollope

... old Mr. Loughead, whose chief object in life since Pickering had been pronounced out of danger, had been to browbeat the trained nurse, and usurp the authority in Pickering's sick-room, "if Mrs. Cabot would keep out, or take it into her head to return home. To state it mildly," continued the old gentleman, not lowering his tone in the least, "that lady doesn't seem to be gifted with the qualities ...
— Five Little Peppers Grown Up • Margaret Sidney

... think—she grew undone and weak, disposed to let 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

... threepence three farthings, and then presenting himself before the judge, 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. ...
— The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom, Complete • Tobias Smollett

... their conqueror through street and market-place. The melancholy part of the situation is that one feels that these excellent people, for all their admiration, have not learnt the real lesson of the incident in the least. They would be prepared to browbeat and contemn originality just as vigorously as their predecessors. They would speak of a modern Keats as a self-indulgent dilettante; of a modern Shelley as an immoral Republican. The fact that the two have stepped silently into Parnassus, receiving nothing but contempt ...
— The Silent Isle • Arthur Christopher Benson



Words linked to "Browbeat" :   cajole, ballyrag, sweet-talk, bullyrag, push around, bully, tyrannize, swagger, strong-arm



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