browbeat
Americanverb (used with object)
-
browbeats,
present (3rd person singular)
-
browbeat,
past
-
browbeaten,
past participle
-
browbeating
present participle
verb
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
-
browbeatsimple
-
browbeatssimple
-
have browbeatenperfect
-
has browbeatenperfect
-
am browbeatingprogressive
-
are browbeatingprogressive
-
is browbeatingprogressive
-
have been browbeatingperfect progressive
-
has been browbeatingperfect progressive
Past
-
browbeatsimple
-
had browbeatenperfect
-
was browbeatingprogressive
-
were browbeatingprogressive
-
had been browbeatingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of browbeat
Explanation
To browbeat is to intimidate with language. Picture yourself in a police station. The cops are trying to get you to talk by using tough, even abusive, language. They are browbeating you. When someone browbeats you, they're giving you a beating with their mouth and their mind. If your parents have to browbeat you into cleaning your room, they nag you, yell at you and they may even make fun of you and your bad cleaning habits. While the word brow means forehead, think that they're using their head, or brow, to beat you down. It's a figurative, rather than a literal, beating.
Vocabulary lists containing browbeat
100 SAT Words Beginning with "B"
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The Secret Life of Bees
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List 6
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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:
Jeers to airlines who browbeat passengers into checking their carry-on bags at the gate, with agents threatening a possible delayed departure if enough travelers don’t give up their bags.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 28, 2026
Dodgers management didn’t browbeat Treinen and Call, and that’s fine — ballplayers should be entitled to share their personal thoughts, however noxious.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 23, 2026
But when things started to get "really crazy", she browbeat her parents into coming with her.
From BBC ● Feb. 15, 2025
"We've got to stop the coercion. We've got to stop trying to browbeat people."
From Salon ● Nov. 15, 2021
I took Master Hemme’s hair from the student and recognized him as Basil, the boy Hemme had browbeat yesterday.
From "The Name of the Wind" by Patrick Rothfuss
The actor was shown to no less domineering effect in The Great Santini, playing a frustrated Marine pilot who hectors and browbeats his teenage children.
From BBC ● Feb. 16, 2026
Brown browbeats them into playing what he’s got in mind, explaining that they should treat all of their instruments as drums, and suddenly the song comes together.
From Slate ● Jul. 31, 2014
She browbeats her guest into giving her an estimate of the painting’s value — that is, if it is authentic.
From New York Times ● Dec. 31, 2011
In a stream of phone calls, he browbeats immigration officials, jawbones local reporters about the case and communes via video with Mr. Nabeel.
From New York Times ● Mar. 6, 2011
Yes; it is no matter to Chattaway how he browbeats me and exposes my affairs.
From Trevlyn Hold by Mrs. Henry Wood
Audiences who endured the Miramax era have been browbeaten to believe that the best picture Oscar should go to a period piece that chokes out a sob from audiences.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jan. 22, 2026
And when enough people feel shamed into silence and emotionally browbeaten into shutting down, things boil over.
From Slate ● Jun. 23, 2025
But the truth is they had to be browbeaten into leading that revolution.
From Washington Times ● Feb. 16, 2023
"I don't expect you will be browbeaten by No 10 to do radical or strange new policies," he told them, but he added there was "no excuse to take your foot off the pedal".
From BBC ● Jul. 7, 2022
For once she was not going to be browbeaten.
From "Matilda" by Roald Dahl
He named Quintero as his accomplice only after a browbeating from the authorities, who wanted to frame Quintero for a crime he didn’t commit, Trujillo told the jury.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 28, 2026
"Hopefully they are done in a memorable enough way that it sticks in people's heads and is more of an inspirational thing rather than browbeating people into feeling bad about not saving the planet."
From BBC ● Apr. 23, 2026
The question is whether the party now meekly succumbs to the browbeating:
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jan. 14, 2026
One of the uglier early nomination hearings, Wittes reminds us, was the browbeating meted out to Thurgood Marshall in 1967 by such Southern segregationists as Strom Thurmond and Sam J. Ervin Jr.
From Washington Post ● Mar. 29, 2022
“By bullying and browbeating anybody who tries to stop you. Chaplain, get me my uniform! It’s around this hospital somewhere. For once in your life, succeed at something.”
From "Catch-22" by Joseph Heller
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Get a wordDefinitions 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.
