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

Diminutive and wiry, with mournful, beetle-browed eyes and a raspy tenor voice, Mr. Aznavour lacked the rakish sex appeal and ebullience of chanteurs such as Maurice Chevalier and Yves Montand.

From Washington Post • Oct. 1, 2018

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

One was the conviction of the stocky, beetle-browed Hungarian physicist that the lethargic pace of thermonuclear research had placed the United States at the mercy of the Soviet Union.

From "Big Science" by Michael Hiltzik