terrorize
Americanverb (used with object)
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to fill or overcome with terror.
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to dominate or coerce by intimidation.
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to produce widespread fear by acts of violence, as bombings.
verb
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to coerce or control by violence, fear, threats, etc
-
to inspire with dread; terrify
Related Words
See frighten.
Other Word Forms
- terrorization noun
- terrorizer noun
- unterrorized adjective
Etymology
Origin of terrorize
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.
It’s like the Eagles have turned him loose to terrorize quarterbacks and running backs in the playoffs.
From Los Angeles Times
In Chicago, where immigration agents terrorized residents all fall, officials at the Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe in suburban Des Plaines are seeing the same even as they adopt security measures to reassure attendees.
From Los Angeles Times
Ergo Sum, the local school’s classics instructor, is terrorized by his memories of surviving World War II and convinced that he is transforming into a wolf.
It featured a young couple terrorized by a demon in their new home, and was seemingly cut together out of footage the husband filmed on a camcorder in the house.
From Los Angeles Times
Then the dictator himself, a man who had spent the past two decades terrorizing his own people, spread out his arms and began lurching to the music.
From Literature
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.
