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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Recent Examples of muscles
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
Scott Roxborough, HollywoodReporter, 29 Oct. 2025
Recent Examples of Synonyms for muscles
Verb
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WhatsApp already forces its users to upgrade their app every three months.—
Sam Knight,
New Yorker,
12 Jan. 2026
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That depth matters in a season bisected by the FIFA World Cup, which runs June 11-July 19 and forces MLS into a seven-week hiatus.—
Colin Cerniglia,
Charlotte Observer,
12 Jan. 2026
Verb
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Kenya licensed 42 new digital lenders, raising the country’s total number to 195, as the central bank pushes to formalize a sector that has become an important part of East Africa’s largest economy.—
Preeti Jha,
semafor.com,
9 Jan. 2026
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The financial asset label pushes prediction markets toward the exclusive jurisdiction of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), a federal agency, and grants immunity from state gambling laws and taxes on gross betting revenue.—
Dan Bernstein,
Sportico.com,
9 Jan. 2026
Verb
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One of the most powerful yet underappreciated forces in these dynamics is social identity, the psychological force that compels people to sort themselves into groups and take those group boundaries seriously.—
Justin Angle,
The Conversation,
6 Jan. 2026
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One scene involves Varang poisoning Quaritch with a mysterious hallucinatory drug that compels him to tell the truth about his motivations.—
Jack Smart,
PEOPLE,
20 Dec. 2025
Verb
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Buckley shoulders intense on-screen distress without losing grasp of her character’s humanity, and Mescal lets his wan charm melt into something more haunted as Shakespeare ages and wrestles with loss.—
David Sims,
The Atlantic,
27 Nov. 2025
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Atop that sits the conundrum of living in a city so small that every citizen shoulders the stress of celebrity.—
Literary Hub,
Literary Hub,
26 Nov. 2025
Verb
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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
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Haunted by the suspicious death of his ailing mother, Ali, a university professor, coerces his enigmatic gardener to execute a cold-blooded act of vengeance.—
Jill Goldsmith,
Deadline,
14 Nov. 2025
Verb
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Lower gently, elbows out 45 degrees, back flat.—
Gretchen Reynolds,
Washington Post,
7 Jan. 2026
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Glasses, no makeup, lips compressed, elbows close to body.—
Margaret Heidenry,
Vanity Fair,
24 Dec. 2025
Verb
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As the moon follows an elliptical path, Saturn’s gravity stretches and squeezes it.—
Neetika Walter,
Interesting Engineering,
17 Dec. 2025
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View gallery - 12 images This recently completed tiny house squeezes a lot of living space into a compact footprint using clever design.—
New Atlas,
New Atlas,
27 Nov. 2025
Cite this Entry
“Muscles.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/muscles. Accessed 16 Jan. 2026.
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