variants
also bare-knuckled
or bare-knuckles
as in gladiatorial
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Example Sentences
Recent Examples of Synonyms for bare-knuckle
Adjective
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That means big logos and in-your-face branding could be getting more space on runways and store mannequins.—
Alex Harring,
CNBC,
11 Aug. 2025 -
There is nothing preachy here, no in-your-face political message that takes away from your enjoyment of the film.—
Erik Kain,
Forbes.com,
8 Aug. 2025
Adjective
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Of course, the increasingly partisan, combative, and at times, chaotic atmosphere had infiltrated the modern Congress before Johnson or his Senate counterpart, Majority Leader John Thune, took the gavel.—
Savannah Kuchar,
USA Today,
3 Aug. 2025
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Instead, the parties have yet to even reach an agreement for the contract that expired in 2022, and the union is taking a more publicly combative tone ahead of arbitration.—
David Clarey,
jsonline.com,
31 July 2025
Adjective
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Some Democrats may thrill each time Newsom delivers one of his pugnacious pronouncements.—
Mark Barabak,
Mercury News,
19 July 2025
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Keefe was an Irish Republican from Boston, the son of a meat cutter, who made his name in New Haven as a pugnacious defender of the oppressed from their oppressors.—
Edmund H. Mahony,
Hartford Courant,
11 July 2025
Adjective
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Depending on your perspective, of course, some of these use cases might not be unethical, but the tension between these survey answers encouraged me: far from being nihilistic, take-no-prisoners cheaters, my students seemed genuinely confused.—
Piers Gelly
July 28,
Literary Hub,
28 July 2025
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But Groff’s take-no-prisoners performance as nightclub superstar Bobby Darin is pure Broadway, and thoroughly – and more than justifiably – winning.—
Greg Evans,
Deadline,
6 June 2025
Adjective
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Being caught between a belligerent and unrestrained nuclear power (Israel) and a hostile neighbor (Iran) severely undercuts Gulf visions of national development and global interconnectedness.—
Hasan T. Alhasan,
Foreign Affairs,
4 Aug. 2025
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Fittingly, the music is intense, darkly funny, frequently beautiful, absurd, sometimes frightening, belligerent, angry, crazy.—
Will Hermes,
Rolling Stone,
26 July 2025
Adjective
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Though Hunt Wynorski’s (Nick Zano) actual death happens off-screen, his pained panic at being trapped underwater by the suction pull of a public pool’s drain is an agonizing sequence, culminating in the gnarly visual of a blood-and-guts fountain.—
Gayle Sequeira,
Vulture,
16 May 2025
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This is a blood-and-guts medical-show model, in which everything teeters on the brink of catastrophe at all times and the doctors are adrenaline junkies approximately one shift away from a complete mental breakdown.—
Kathryn VanArendonk,
Vulture,
3 Apr. 2025
Adjective
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While some agree with early views of student protestors that Israel is carrying out a campaign of cruelty and ethnic cleansing in Gaza, others insist Hamas, the militant group in control of the region, which attacked Israel on Oct. 7, sparking the war, is solely responsible for the suffering.—
Anna Kaufman,
USA Today,
5 Aug. 2025
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Videos released by the militant groups Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad last week showed hostages Evyatar David and Rom Braslavski in a visibly fragile state – images that galvanized a forceful reaction both at home and abroad.—
Dana Karni,
CNN Money,
3 Aug. 2025
Adjective
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The Fed’s debates about monetary policy come against a bellicose political backdrop, in which the central bank’s traditional independence is eroding.—
Paolo Confino,
Fortune,
18 July 2025
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In 2017, the President returned from an impressively bellicose Bastille Day celebration in France determined to host his own version of a military parade.—
Susan B. Glasser,
New Yorker,
12 June 2025
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Cite this Entry
“Bare-knuckle.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/bare-knuckle. Accessed 20 Aug. 2025.
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