imbrute

American  

[im-broot] / ɪmˈbrut /

Or embrute

verb (used with or without object)

imbruted, imbruting

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

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Other Word Forms

• embrutement
  noun
• imbrutement
  noun

Etymology

Origin of imbrute

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

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

imbrute imbruted imbruting

Any nobleness begins at once to refine a man's features, any meanness or sensuality to imbrute them.

From Walden by Henry David Thoreau

I care, as you know, nothing for them, nor only that, abhor them for their power to imbrute the people accustomed to their spectacles more and more.

From Zenobia or, the Fall of Palmyra by William Ware

But she herself is a slave-holder, and therefore by our theory she ought to be imbruted.

From The Sable Cloud A Southern Tale With Northern Comments (1861) by Nehemiah Adams

Thus, under the gaslight and under the stars, stood the terrible animal,—a strong man imbruted; "SOUVIENS-TOI DE TA GABRIELLE."

From What Will He Do with It? — Complete by Edward Bulwer Lytton, Baron Lytton

Retribution may come from any voice; the hardest, cruelest, most imbruted urchin at the street-corner can inflict it; surely help and pity are rarer things, more needful for the righteous to bestow.

From The Mill on the Floss by George Eliot

By means of a few drops of powerful cordial, the doctor for a moment reanimated the imbruted carcass that lay before him.

From Five Weeks in a Balloon by Jules Verne

No trace of manhood or womanhood was visible—and no animal is so repulsive as a man or woman imbruted.

From Nature's Serial Story by Edward Payson Roe

It spoke of a pause from grinding care and imbruting toil; a gleam of hope in the work-a-day routine.

From The Gold of Chickaree by Susan Warner

Not a few, on finding they cannot enter the beautiful paradise of happy love, plunge into imbruting vice, and drown not only their disappointment but themselves in dissipation.

From Barriers Burned Away by Edward Payson Roe