intimidating
Americanadjective
-
Sometimes intimidatory intended to frighten someone or to force or stop someone’s action through fear.
We will not be sucked in to your macho agenda by intimidating threats of violence or seductive promises of power.
-
causing timidity, hesitancy, or anxiety, especially because of difficulty or risk; daunting.
The day-to-day operations of the healthcare environment can be overwhelming and intimidating to the point of paralysis.
-
causing someone to feel overawed or cowed, as through force of personality or superior display of wealth, talent, rank, etc..
All the others had gone to Harvard or Yale, and I was just a country hick; it was intimidating, for sure.
Other Word Forms
- unintimidating adjective
Etymology
Origin of intimidating
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Tradwife influencers advise young women to speak in pleasing tones and warn against intimidating the men in their lives.
From Salon
Even if the call had been intimidating, the judge wrote in his ruling, he was not convinced that such a call “would have chilled a person of ordinary firmness from exercising their First Amendment rights.”
From Los Angeles Times
All 39 people arrested are charged with conspiracy against religious freedom at a place of worship and injuring, intimidating and interfering with the exercise of the right of religious freedom at a place of worship.
From BBC
Their plight at the hugely unpopular and vast former athletics track is well documented, with fans pining for Upton Park's intimidating atmosphere.
From BBC
Pablo Arceo, who works at a Mexican restaurant a short drive from the vacant warehouse, is anxious about ICE officials intimidating his colleagues.
From Barron's
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
