pummel
Americanverb (used with object)
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pummels,
present (3rd person singular)
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pummeled,
past participle, past
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pummelled,
past participle, past (especially British)
-
pummeling,
present participle
-
pummelling
present participle (especially British)
verb
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
-
pummelsimple
-
pummelssimple
-
have pummeledperfect
-
have pummelledperfect
-
has pummeledperfect
-
has pummelledperfect
-
am pummelingprogressive
-
am pummellingprogressive
-
are pummelingprogressive
-
are pummellingprogressive
-
is pummelingprogressive
-
is pummellingprogressive
-
have been pummelingperfect progressive
-
have been pummellingperfect progressive
-
has been pummelingperfect progressive
-
has been pummellingperfect progressive
Past
-
pummeledsimple
-
pummelledsimple
-
had pummeledperfect
-
had pummelledperfect
-
was pummelingprogressive
-
was pummellingprogressive
-
were pummelingprogressive
-
were pummellingprogressive
-
had been pummelingperfect progressive
-
had been pummellingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of pummel
First recorded in 1540–50; alteration of pommel
Explanation
The best pummelers in the world are probably boxers, as to pummel means to repeatedly beat someone down, especially with fists. The main sense of pummel is physical, but you can use it figuratively when something is taking a beating. During a stock market crash, the economy is being pummeled. A heavy rain can pummel the earth. If you get three bad math grades in a row, it feels like numbers themselves are pummeling you. When many bad things happen at once, it feels like you're being pummeled by life.
Vocabulary lists containing pummel
The Vocabulary.com Top 1000
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Super Bowl Blowout: Epic Vocab for the Big Game
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The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
The film’s brilliance comes from Wain and Marino knowing how to pummel the viewer with jokes while measuring each punchline’s individual weight.
From Salon ● Jul. 12, 2026
A war that seemed primed to pummel emerging economies reliant on Middle East imports hasn’t done the same to their stock markets.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 3, 2026
Tornadoes, thunderstorms and blizzard conditions are forecast to pummel parts of the eastern US.
From BBC ● Mar. 16, 2026
This week, investors became very worried that rapidly-advancing AI capabilities offered by companies like Anthropic are going to pummel any company with services that include enterprise software.
From MarketWatch ● Feb. 4, 2026
Gusts of air and seawater pummel the rocky shore.
From "The Sea in Winter" by Christine Day
Santi, meanwhile, knows he’s good; when he pummels a ball, it sounds like a sonic boom.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 15, 2025
Now they say they have nowhere to hide from intense flooding as rainfall exacerbated by the weather phenomenon El Nino pummels large parts of Somalia.
From Seattle Times ● Nov. 22, 2023
Lethal landslides are common in the area when heavy monsoon rain pummels Myanmar between May and October.
From BBC ● Aug. 14, 2023
The sheer force of their thousand-pound bodies pummels the dirt track's hazardous slings — but only after first funneling through the narrow cabling of their spindly forelimb ligaments.
From Salon ● Jun. 10, 2023
The waterfall pummels the water around us, and a lifeguard ushers us to the hill.
From "They Both Die at the End" by Adam Silvera
The country's third-largest city was pummeled by a 7.4 magnitude earthquake on Monday, along with swaths of Colombia's coffee region and western coast.
From Barron's ● Aug. 13, 2026
Leveraged ETFs tied to chipmaker SK Hynix were pummeled Tuesday, amid a punishing selloff in semiconductor stocks this month as whiplash around the powerful artificial-intelligence trade continues.
From MarketWatch ● Jul. 28, 2026
In an industry that hasn’t seen traffic come back since COVID-19 and was further pummeled by the Palisades fire last year, it was a welcome sight for Lisa Powers, the restaurant’s operations manager.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 24, 2026
That comes in the wake of yet another record-breaking heat wave that has pummeled the Northern Hemisphere.
From Salon ● Jul. 19, 2026
She unleashed a miniature onslaught, and it took everything I had to shield myself as her tiny fists and feet pummeled me.
From "Tristan Strong Punches a Hole in the Sky" by Kwame Mbalia
Senator Jose "Jinggoy" Estrada's detention came nearly a year after revelations over massive corruption in flood control projects -- a matter with serious consequences in a country pummelled every year by major typhoons.
From Barron's ● Jun. 1, 2026
The group pummelled the bot with more than 1,000 prompts to bypass the safeguards and convince Claude they were allowed to test the system for vulnerabilities.
From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 5, 2026
Also on the main card, rising Frenchman Benoit Saint Denis pummelled New Zealand's Dan Hooker with a second round technical knockout in the lightweight.
From Barron's ● Feb. 1, 2026
Meanwhile, parts of Western Australia were pummelled by Tropical Cyclone Luana over the weekend.
From BBC ● Jan. 25, 2026
I’d looked at Kat’s little finger, and imagined Dad going around it, in miniature, stretched and pummelled into an odd-looking, living ring.
From "The London Eye Mystery" by Siobhan Dowd
San Antonio had built its mammoth lead with Wembanyama pummeling the Knicks inside and freeing up his teammates for wide-open looks from the perimeter.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 11, 2026
In her first picture, she stood in a one-piece on a boulder, smiling, a waterfall pummeling behind her.
From Los Angeles Times ● Feb. 20, 2026
Miami is so set on pummeling the quarterback, in fact, that it eve disrupts their practice routines.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jan. 7, 2026
A San Diego man was killed Wednesday morning after a tree fell on him, the third death linked to the storm pummeling Southern California over the holiday, the San Diego Police Department confirmed.
From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 25, 2025
He walks to the spot the scanner indicates and begins pummeling its surface with his drill.
From "The Last Cuentista" by Donna Barba Higuera
The heatwaves pummelling Europe this summer will have costly impacts on industries ranging from agriculture to tourism -- but that hasn't stopped stock markets from hitting all-time highs.
From Barron's ● Aug. 14, 2026
Rohit reached his century in 84 balls and continued to harangue the England attack, pummelling the opposition with his trademark powerful pull shot.
From BBC ● Jul. 19, 2026
The study only looked at data up to 2024, however Emerton said the heatwaves already pummelling Europe this year suggest the trend has been continuing.
From Barron's ● Jun. 22, 2026
“Artificial Angels” captures the pummelling wrongness of internet-assisted living in 2025.
From Salon ● Nov. 7, 2025
In the South, at any rate, we bear the scars and the mourning of those days still, but nobody would be thanked for pummelling us with patriotism.
From Germany and the Germans From an American Point of View by Price Collier
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
