arm-twist

verb

as in to intimidate

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Example Sentences

Recent Examples of Synonyms for arm-twist
  1. intimidate
  2. browbeat
  3. bully
  4. threaten
  5. cow
  6. terrorize
  7. coerce
  8. bulldoze
Verb
  • The Basij boosted its presence during the war, and hard-liners have held nightly rallies in Tehran and other cities, drumming up support and intimidating any possible dissenters.
    — Lee Keath, Fortune, 29 Aug. 2026
  • Civil rights organizations including the American Civil Liberties Union accused the department of attempting to intimidate the public by arming agents with another use-of-force option.
    — Christopher Buchanan, Los Angeles Times, 27 Aug. 2026
Definition of intimidate
Verb
  • Scarface doesn’t just bark orders at his underlings but browbeats the whimpering Ventriloquist, giving him that warped double personality that made older characters like Two-Face so alluring.
    — Daniel Dockery, Vulture, 24 Aug. 2026
  • Pheu Thai, conservatives believed, could always be co-opted or browbeaten into a politics of benefit sharing in which wealth and power were divided between a Pheu Thai figurehead and conservative power brokers.
    — Duncan McCargo, Foreign Affairs, 24 Aug. 2026
Definition of browbeat
Verb
  • Trump has been bullying Canada since the start of his second term.
    — Robert B. Reich, Hartford Courant, 25 Aug. 2026
  • All of us artists could stand to be more like Mark, willing to speak out for oppressed people everywhere, even when powerful people try to bully us into silence.
    — Abid Rahman, HollywoodReporter, 25 Aug. 2026
Definition of bully
Verb
  • An 18-year-old North Carolina woman threatened to fabricate child molestation accusations if a man didn’t give her cash, according to police in Huntersville.
    — Mark Price, Charlotte Observer, 26 Aug. 2026
  • Trump has threatened to also double tariffs on automobiles and auto parts from Canada from 25% to 50%.
    — Joey Garrison, USA Today, 26 Aug. 2026
Definition of threaten
Verb
  • What stood out was his confidence; Bouaddi was never cowed up against the experienced pairing of Bruno Guimaraes and Casemiro.
    — Conor O'Neill, New York Times, 22 July 2026
  • Refusing to be cowed, Sartre responded to Aron with his own book on Marx, the nine-hundred-page Critique of Dialectical Reason, in 1960.
    — Literary Hub, Literary Hub, 21 July 2026
Definition of cow
Verb
  • Arrest documents offered a flurry of new details about two former Phoenix police officers suspected of terrorizing a couple during a traffic stop and failing to document or report the stop.
    — Perry Vandell, AZCentral.com, 26 Aug. 2026
  • For decades, Blythe Street gang terrorized Panorama City despite injunctions, beautification projects and millions in investment.
    — Matthew Ormseth, Los Angeles Times, 26 Aug. 2026
Definition of terrorize
Verb
  • But in the past, these efforts were largely aimed at threatening or coercing Washington to act in their favor.
    — Dina Esfandiary, Foreign Affairs, 27 Aug. 2026
  • That user is suing multiple sportsbooks, including FanDuel, for leveraging VIP perks to coerce further betting.
    — Tim Britton, New York Times, 26 Aug. 2026
Definition of coerce
Verb
  • The dead from Srebrenica were bulldozed into mass graves over four days in July 1995, some of them dug up and relocated to remote mountains so as to hide evidence of the killings.
    — Ivana Sekularac, USA Today, 27 Aug. 2026
  • James is an extremely tough runner who bulldozes the competition.
    — Charles Baggarly August 26, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, 26 Aug. 2026
Definition of bulldoze
Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.

Browse Nearby Words

arms
arm-twist
arm-twisted
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Cite this Entry

“Arm-twist.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/arm-twist. Accessed 3 Sep. 2026.

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