PULLING Synonyms: 63 Similar and Opposite Words

pulling

verb

present participle of pull

as in hauling

to cause to follow by applying steady force on a team of horses pulling a heavy wagon

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Antonyms & Near Antonyms

as in prying

to draw out by force or with effort the dentist had to struggle to pull the tooth

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Antonyms & Near Antonyms

as in stretching

to injure by overuse, misuse, or pressure lift the crate carefully, or you'll pull a muscle

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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 pulling Havertz pulling to the right, combined with the snappier passing of Rice, is what brought their equaliser. — Jack Lang, New York Times, 6 Sep. 2026 Even average Big Ten linemen are pulling $400,000 or more these days. — Dom Amore, Hartford Courant, 6 Sep. 2026 Texas Christian University has changed its position and decided to reinstate press credentials for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram after pulling them last week, just days before the team got their season underway. — Matt Reigle Outkick, FOXNews.com, 5 Sep. 2026 Images on social media showed rescuers pulling the woman from the house, wrapped in a gray blanket. — Jon Haworth, ABC News, 5 Sep. 2026 And yes, there’s a lot of pulling faces and funny jokes and shiny costumes, but not much technique. — Graham Womack, Sacbee.com, 5 Sep. 2026 Why TikTok livestream selling can drive big sales Three forces are pulling sellers toward livestream commerce, and Duplantis’s numbers reflect all of them. — Ryan Brennan, Miami Herald, 30 Aug. 2026 Wildfire risk is pushing insurers to underwrite hotels based on physical resilience rather than location alone, and carriers are pulling back from some markets entirely. — Josipa Majic Predin, Forbes.com, 30 Aug. 2026 Church & Dwight Analyst Anna Lizzul said in a recent note to clients that Church & Dwight management is pulling all the right levers in its turnaround. — Michael Bloom, CNBC, 29 Aug. 2026

Recent Examples of Synonyms for pulling

Verb

The four Chinese cargo drones being used by the Nepal army are currently hauling about 132 pounds of supplies per trip, Reuters reported.

— Jeremy Hsu, ArsTechnica, 10 Sep. 2026
The Romulus Police Department said the truck, which was hauling a large load of small metal components, flipped on its side while the driver tried to navigate a corner on Wayne Road onto I-94.

— Paula Wethington, CBS News, 9 Sep. 2026

Definition of hauling

Verb

How much of it might be solved by prying them from our children’s hands?

— Joshua Rothman, New Yorker, 4 Sep. 2026
Since Bill completed his term as the 42nd POTUS in 2001, the political power couple has primarily resided in a Dutch Colonial dwelling in New York’s Westchester County, secluded amongst the trees—and away from prying eyes.

— Katie Schultz, Architectural Digest, 2 Sep. 2026

Definition of prying

Verb

Cinnamon ferns form hummocks, with tightly wound fiddleheads stretching upwards toward the sun, just beginning to unfurl into emerald fronds.

— Literary Hub, Literary Hub, 9 Sep. 2026
The base of the light cone will start near Cancer, resting just above the horizon, stretching upward through Gemini, and reaching high into the predawn sky toward Taurus.

— Jules-Pierre Malartre, Space.com, 9 Sep. 2026

Definition of stretching

Verb

The story went viral, Rust recalls, dragging local, state and, ultimately, federal officials into a Keystone Kops-like battle of wills.

— Jack Dolan, Los Angeles Times, 4 Sep. 2026
During the transformation the gases escape, dragging dust and ice particles off the surface with them.

— Keith Cooper, Space.com, 4 Sep. 2026

Definition of dragging

Verb

Once the drop trap — a simple wire cage triggered by yanking on a cord — is set up with an enticing mix of sardines and shards of roast chicken on a cardboard tray inside, everyone moves out of sight behind massive logs a few yards away.

— Adam Tschorn, Los Angeles Times, 8 Sep. 2026
Sandra Ogbebor hunches over her softly humming refrigerator and scours through bottles before finally yanking out an orange juice.

— Light Oriye Tamunotonye, Christian Science Monitor, 3 Sep. 2026

Definition of yanking

Verb

Ukraine, meanwhile, has extended its own long-range drone campaign deep into Russia, straining air defenses across its bigger neighbor's vast territory.

— Arkansas Online, Arkansas Online, 12 Sep. 2026
This is Ohtani’s first time on the IL since straining his oblique at the end of his tenure with the Los Angeles Angels in 2023.

— Fabian Ardaya, New York Times, 10 Sep. 2026

Definition of straining

Verb

Fibr produced the dataset by extracting composition information published on retailers’ product pages.

— Alexandra Harrell, Footwear News, 8 Sep. 2026
That company has a method for extracting lithium from salt water brine, skipping a common refining process typically needed to get the material from hard rock.

— Robert Ferris, CNBC, 8 Sep. 2026

Definition of extracting

Browse Nearby Words

pull in

pulling

pulling a face

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Style

“Pulling.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/pulling. Accessed 13 Sep. 2026.

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Synonyms of pulling

verb

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