beetle-browed

American  

[beet-l-broud] / ˈbit lˌbraʊd /

adjective

1. having heavy projecting eyebrows.

2. scowling or sullen.

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beetle-browed British  

adjective

1. having bushy or overhanging eyebrows

2. sullen in appearance; scowling

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Etymology

Origin of beetle-browed

1325–75; Middle English bitel-browed, probably with bitel sharp(-edged), Old English *bitel ( beetle ¹ ); brow, -ed ³

Example Sentences

As a young man, he had worked on Richard Nixon’s 1968 presidential campaign, producing TV spots designed to make the fulminating, beetle-browed Nixon seem not just palatable but benevolent.

From Slate • Apr. 9, 2020

There he is, a burly, beetle-browed man of 60, handing out hot tea on the beaches at Lesbos, comforting a traumatised woman inside a makeshift studio and cooking kebabs on a barbecue at a dusty refugee camp.

From The Guardian • Sep. 17, 2017

He has, Mr. Gardiner writes, “the look of a man etched with life’s travails — beetle-browed, with shallow eye sockets, asymmetrical eyes and slightly droopy eyelids.”

From New York Times • Apr. 29, 2015

Refracted through Spall’s beetle-browed, tightly coiled characterization, most of the formative events in Turner’s life are revisited by way of fleeting memories or gruff, dismissive asides.

From Washington Post • Dec. 23, 2014

Neither my new long reach nor Chapter Eleven’s beetle-browed concentration was sufficient to counter Milton’s wicked spin or his “killer shot” which left red marks on our chests, through our clothes.

From "Middlesex: A Novel" by Jeffrey Eugenides