- intimidate
- intimidate, cow, bulldoze, bully, browbeat are comparable when meaning to frighten or coerce by frightening means into submission or obedience.Intimidate primarily implies a making timid or fearful, but it often suggests a display or application (as of force or learning) so as to cause fear or a sense of inferiority and a consequent submission{
a musket was, therefore, fired over them, but . . . they seemed rather to be provoked than intimidated— Cook
}{he wasn't lazy, he wasn't a fool, and he meant to be honest; but he was intimidated by that miserable sort of departmental life— Cather
}{the Democrats were attempting to impeach President Grant for alleged misuse of the military to intimidate voters— Woodward
}Cow implies reduction to a state where the spirit is broken or all courage is lost{he flung them back, commanded them, cowed them with his hard, intelligent eyes, like a tamer among beasts— Arthur Morrison
}{youthful hearers who might be disillusioned or cowed by recent history— J. M. Brown
}Bulldoze implies an intimidating or an overcoming of resistance usually by forceful demanding or urging or by implied threats{a mean, stingy, bulldozing poseur with woodchuck whiskers— Pegler
}{through the sheer strength of his reputation and the force of his will bulldozing them into making loans— F. L. Allen
}{some irate customer who had come in to bulldoze me . . . and had tried to bully me with mere words— White
}Bully implies intimidation through overbearing, swaggering threats or insults, and in schoolboy use it usually suggests bulldozing of small boys by those who are larger or more aggressive{suppose the cabman bullies you for double fare— Shaw
}{I know what you're going to call me . . . but I am not to be bullied by words— L.P. Smith
}Browbeat implies a cowing through arrogant, scornful, contemptuous, or insolent treatment{he browbeat the informers against us, and treated their evidence with . . . little favor— Fielding
}{who saw my old kind parents . . . too much trustful . . . cheated, browbeaten, stripped and starved, cast out into the kennel— Browning
}
New Dictionary of Synonyms. 2014.
