imbrute

Or em·brute

[im-broot]

verb (used with or without object)

imbruted, imbruting 

1. to degrade or sink to the level of a brute.

Other Word Forms

• imbrutement noun
• embrutement noun

Word History and Origins

Origin of imbrute¹

First recorded in 1625–35; im- ¹ + brute ¹

Example Sentences

Imbrute, im-brōōt′, v.t. and v.i. to reduce, or sink, to the state of a brute:—pr.p. imbrut′ing; pa.p. imbrut′ed.

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We further maintain:— That no man has a right to enslave or imbrute his brother—to hold or acknowledge him, for one moment, as a piece of merchandise—to keep back his hire by fraud—or to brutalize his mind by denying him the means of intellectual, social, and moral improvement.

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But the tendency of life in the open air is to make the soul imbody and imbrute, and after a while one begins to think scholarship a disease, or, at any rate, a bad habit; and the Scythian nomad, or, if you choose, the Texan cowboy, seems to be the normal, healthy type.

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But whether his livery were filthy sheepskin or gold-laced caftan,—whether he lay on carpets at the door of his master, or in filth on the floor of his cabin,—whether he gave us cold, stupid stories of his wrongs, or flippant details of his joys,—whether he blessed his master or cursed him,—we have wondered at the power which a serf-system has to degrade and imbrute the image of God.

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O foul descent! that I, who erst contended With Gods to sit the highest, am now constrained Into a beast; and, mixed with bestial slime, This essence to incarnate and imbrute, That to the highth of Deity aspired!

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