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 Thoreau, Henry David

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 Ware, William

And each knows that wherever he may turn, he will find the other standing up against him—the fierce imbruted prisoner with his royal fearlessness, and his intense and frigid guard.

From A Modern Mercenary by Prichard, K. (Kate)

It is one of the marvels of human depravity that intelligent minds could have been so imbruted as to tolerate, for a day, so fiend-like a wrong.

From The Empire of Russia by Abbott, John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot)

Long-wrought, closely knit, subtly swaying, deep-rooted, The system whose shadow is over the child; By grey superstition debased and imbruted, By craft's callous cruelty deeply defiled.

From Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 99, October 18, 1890 by Various

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 Eliot, George

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 Verne, Jules

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 Warner, Susan

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 Roe, Edward Payson