ironfisted

Example Sentences

Recent Examples of Synonyms for ironfisted
Adjective
  • Cooper was obsessed with the New World Order and the actions of jackbooted government enforcers against the Branch Davidians in Waco, Texas, and white separatist Randy Weaver at Ruby Ridge, Idaho.
    Andrew Stuttaford, WSJ, 19 Sep. 2018
  • Likethumb_up Replyreply Linklink Copy Reportflag eraley 22 minutes ago Trump’s America and his jackbooted thugs.
    Marwa Eltagouri, Washington Post, 28 May 2018
Adjective
  • Related Stories Farrelly thinks that kind of oppressive political correctness is fading and that audiences are eager to see movies that eviscerate good taste in order to land a joke again.
    Brent Lang, Variety, 5 Sep. 2025
  • Pitted against the unforgettably evil Nurse Ratched (Louise Fletcher), a sadist who drugs and abuses the unlucky patients in her care, McMurphy’s stand against the oppressive powers that be is tragic and poignant and spoke to the spirit of a time in which so many felt misunderstood.
    Christina Newland, Vulture, 5 Sep. 2025
Adjective
  • Trump's public approval rating on immigration fell to 43% in a Reuters/Ipsos poll in August from a high of 50% in March as Americans took an increasingly dim view of his heavy-handed tactics against migrants.
    Ted Hesson, USA Today, 2 Sep. 2025
  • The President, for the most part, has urged calm, but law enforcement officials have responded with heavy-handed crackdowns on protesters, fueling even more backlash.
    Chad de Guzman, Time, 1 Sep. 2025
Adjective
  • From stern to bow, the boat was a lesson in restrained elegance, with plenty of teak wood and muted, calming shades.
    Rachel Wallace, Architectural Digest, 4 Sep. 2025
  • But after nabbing the part of the stern hotel manager Valentina in the second season of The White Lotus (2022), Impacciatore was launched into Hollywood fame.
    Jackson McHenry, Vulture, 4 Sep. 2025
Adjective
  • If coffee is a sledgehammer blow to the brain — admittedly sometimes useful — yaupon was more like a gentle neural stroking.
    Gabriel Popkin, Washington Post, 15 Aug. 2022
  • And Sundwall said that, in retrospect, state health officials took a sledgehammer approach to mitigating the pandemic, such as school closings in 2020, when the state could have taken a more surgical tack.
    Bethany Rodgers, The Salt Lake Tribune, 27 Sep. 2021
Adjective
  • But going back to trying to be gentle in ungentle times.
    Stephanie Stradley, Houston Chronicle, 25 Sep. 2020
  • Notes From an Apocalypse is a gentle argument for coming to terms with the precarity of life, published in a moment where people are facing its fragility in an immediate and ungentle context.
    Kate Knibbs, Wired, 16 Apr. 2020
Adjective
  • For severe weather information this weekend in Kentucky, see what NWS forecasters say here.
    Ray Padilla, Louisville Courier Journal, 6 Sep. 2025
  • More than 2 billion people lack access to safe drinking water, a situation set to worsen due to climate change, which fuels longer and more severe drought.
    Laura Paddison, CNN Money, 6 Sep. 2025
Adjective
  • While Ne Zha’s home of Chentang Pass is being obliterated, we’re shown a grim, apocalyptic tableau of mass death that features a family with a young child frozen in ash.
    Derek Robertson, The Washington Examiner, 5 Sep. 2025
  • The grim irony of Sudan’s predicament is that Africa’s third-largest country boasts significant mineral reserves, including huge quantities of gold, as well as vast swathes of arable land.
    Charlie Campbell, Time, 4 Sep. 2025
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.

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Cite this Entry

“Ironfisted.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/ironfisted. Accessed 9 Sep. 2025.

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