bear down
verb
bore down; borne down also born down; bearing down; bears down
: to exert full strength and concentrated attention
Examples of bear down in a Sentence
you need to bear down on that cap a bit to get it to latch tightly
Recent Examples on the Web
During that blaze, roads in the Pacific Palisades just to the south of Malibu were so clogged that dozens of drivers were forced to abandon their cars and run as the fire bore down on them.
—
Jason Kravarik, CNN Money, 10 Aug. 2025
Critics claim that the cuts have weakened the NWS’s forecasting capacity as hurricane season bears down and extreme weather events, like the floods that ripped through Texas, claim lives and destroy property.
—Meg Wilcox, Wired News, 9 Aug. 2025
Time and again, Garfield impresses with potent compositions, particularly in a scene that depicts father and daughter obliviously walking through a field in the foreground while, in the right-hand corner of the screen, a distant car slowly bears down upon them.
—Joe Leydon, Variety, 1 Aug. 2025
Imagine a major hurricane bearing down on Florida while wildfires rage in California and floods surge across the Midwest.
—MSNBC Newsweek, 11 July 2025
See All Example Sentences for bear down
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Jason Kravarik, CNN Money, 10 Aug. 2025
Critics claim that the cuts have weakened the NWS’s forecasting capacity as hurricane season bears down and extreme weather events, like the floods that ripped through Texas, claim lives and destroy property.
—Meg Wilcox, Wired News, 9 Aug. 2025
Time and again, Garfield impresses with potent compositions, particularly in a scene that depicts father and daughter obliviously walking through a field in the foreground while, in the right-hand corner of the screen, a distant car slowly bears down upon them.
—Joe Leydon, Variety, 1 Aug. 2025
Imagine a major hurricane bearing down on Florida while wildfires rage in California and floods surge across the Midwest.
—MSNBC Newsweek, 11 July 2025
See All Example Sentences for bear down
Cite this Entry
“Bear down.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/bear%20down. Accessed 20 Aug. 2025.
Copy CitationMedical Definition
bear down
intransitive verb
: to contract the abdominal muscles and the diaphragm during childbirth
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