beetle-browed
Americanadjective
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having heavy projecting eyebrows.
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scowling or sullen.
adjective
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having bushy or overhanging eyebrows
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sullen in appearance; scowling
Etymology
Origin of beetle-browed
1325–75; Middle English bitel-browed, probably with bitel sharp(-edged), Old English *bitel ( see beetle 1); see brow, -ed 3
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.
Like The Matrix two years earlier, Donnie Darko became the subject of many a beetle-browed academic monograph and much furious internet-geek debate.
From The Guardian ● Dec. 19, 2016
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
And Harrison Ford, who at first seemed to be overacting, grew on me as the beetle-browed, growling Branch Rickey.
From Slate ● Apr. 12, 2013
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
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.
