muscles

verb

present tense third-person singular of muscle
1
as in forces
to cause (a person) to give in to pressure he was muscled out of command by his opponents at military headquarters

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Antonyms & Near Antonyms
2
as in pushes
to force one's way muscling straight through the packed crowd of people waiting to board the ship

Synonyms & Similar Words

Example Sentences

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.
Recent Examples of muscles Panthers receiver Cataurus Hicks comes down with it and muscles his way forward in an attempt to get into the end zone. — Jordan McPherson, Miami Herald, 28 Oct. 2026 One year later, the XFL muscles its way onto the national sports scene with its first two games. — Assistant Sports Editor, Los Angeles Times, 3 Feb. 2026 Gringo Films does not sound like the kind of company that muscles its way into the global animation business. — Scott Roxborough, HollywoodReporter, 29 Oct. 2025
Recent Examples of Synonyms for muscles
  1. forces
  2. pushes
  3. compels
  4. shoulders
  5. coerces
  6. elbows
  7. squeezes
Verb
  • This question forces founders out of product-speak and into real-world consequences.
    — Olivia Ludington, Forbes.com, 30 Oct. 2026
  • An unexpected turn of events forces him to choose between those ambitions and temptation that could change his future.
    — Essie Assibu, Variety, 30 Oct. 2026
Definition of forces
Verb
  • With the street protests contained, that pushes the economic issue—the protesters want more spending and fewer cuts, which the bond market is unlikely to tolerate—into next April’s elections.
    — Jim Edwards, Fortune, 4 Nov. 2026
  • When a developer pushes code, Pando stores the incoming Git packfile in cloud object storage.
    — Aamir Khollam, Interesting Engineering, 3 Nov. 2026
Definition of pushes
Verb
  • Not the kind of empathy that simply allows someone to understand another person’s struggles, but the kind that compels them to do something about it.
    — Chris Gardner, HollywoodReporter, 14 Oct. 2026
  • Here, Hendrikx plays anthropologist to a culture that compels each of us—whether a rider or not—to find our own vehicle for fulfillment, then take it to redline.
    — Viju Mathew, Robb Report, 30 Sep. 2026
Definition of compels
Verb
  • Mary Amiti, Sebastian Heise and David Weinstein looked at who shoulders the cost of the tariffs, examining which part of the tariff reaches consumers through higher prices versus which share of the price hike is due to other factors.
    — Veronique De Rugy, Oc Register, 4 Sep. 2026
  • Elordi nearly shoulders the running time but plays his Hig a bit too humbly.
    — Amy Nicholson, Los Angeles Times, 28 Aug. 2026
Definition of shoulders
Verb
  • Locked under floors of concrete and alone in his cell with just a toilet and steel bed, Jurek coerces the man in the cell next to him to bash his head in.
    — Aramide Tinubu, Variety, 30 Oct. 2026
  • However, the rotation of this filament clearly dominates how the galaxies within it spin, perhaps by funneling hydrogen gas along the dark-matter filament and onto the galaxies in a way that coerces their spin while providing further fuel for star formation.
    — Keith Cooper, Space.com, 4 Dec. 2025
Definition of coerces
Verb
  • Where the Cayenne’s steering is calibrated so that the road nudges the driver, Bentley’s elbows back at those perturbances.
    — Byron Hurd, The Drive, 27 Aug. 2026
  • Montana props himself up on a utility stool for our interview, elbows on a wood table, while holding his phone in his hand.
    — Selena Fragassi, SPIN, 30 July 2026
Definition of elbows
Verb
  • George pounds, folds, and squeezes the dough as Minicuci watches.
    — HubSpot, HubSpot, 30 Oct. 2026
  • When the user presses their finger on the part of the patch that contains the wet fabric, the pressure squeezes the water out of the material, down one of the microfluidic channels, and into the foaming agent chamber.
    — Ben Coxworth October 23, New Atlas, 23 Oct. 2026
Definition of squeezes

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Cite this Entry

“Muscles.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/muscles. Accessed 5 Nov. 2026.

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