brutalize
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.
See Examples For:
Whether or not he decides to appear at the trial, scheduled to begin later this year, the A.G. can use his videoed deposition testimony to brutalize him the same way Carroll’s lawyers did.
From Slate ● May 11, 2023
The Conversation asked Rashad Shabazz, a geographer and scholar of African American studies at Arizona State University, to explore the societal conditions in which Black police officers could brutalize another Black man.
From Salon ● Feb. 1, 2023
“A White House job is not a promise of an unlimited prerogative to brutalize someone who was a victim of a prior attack,” attorney Joshua Matz said.
From Seattle Times ● Dec. 3, 2021
They built a fledgling democracy with elected leaders who often failed but didn’t brutalize their people as so many regimes in the region do.
From Washington Post ● Aug. 17, 2021
The weight of the sand began to brutalize her shoulders.
From "The Princess Bride" by William Goldman
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Any overacting brutalizes Cheever's prose; mugging is the artistic equivalent of a mugging.
From Time Magazine Archive
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And cold, cold day and night, cold that brutalizes, that degenerates you till you would sell your soul, your mother's soul to be warm again.
From Home Fires in France by Dorothy Canfield
All punishment which is not tempered with forgiveness is brutal; and brutalizes both punisher and punished.
From Practical Ethics by William De Witt Hyde
Frugality, in fact, softens character, in animals as in men; gross feeding brutalizes it.
From The Wonders of Instinct Chapters in the Psychology of Insects by Alexander Teixeira de Mattos
It unfailingly changes the expression; frequently, it degrades and brutalizes the face.
From The Winning Clue by James Hay
This is not the first time I have encountered a situation where the hapless staff find themselves brutalized by loud, idiotic, or culturally discordant music.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 15, 2025
This is about as much of a review of “All’s Fair” worth venturing at this point, since pretty much every critic has brutalized the show.
From Salon ● Nov. 6, 2025
When, in the mid-20th century, President Dwight Eisenhower’s “mighty network of highways” spread its tentacles across the landscape, it brutalized nature.
From Slate ● May 25, 2024
A well-weathered and much brutalized leader, Rick was part of an ever-expanding ensemble but always felt like the main character.
From New York Times ● Feb. 16, 2024
In the kitchen, she hacked at a chunk of ham with a knife and brutalized an onion.
From "Out of Darkness" by Ashley Hope Pérez
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Dahlia Lithwick: These were incredibly consequential gut punches, two more in a long sequence of brutalizing cases.
From Slate ● Jun. 25, 2026
While Roger Federer is depicted as James Bond, in a tux, elegant and wrinkle-free, Nadal is called Rambo, ripped and relentless, brutalizing the ball and opponents alike.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 18, 2026
Los Angeles built off the momentum, brutalizing Arizona with eight straight designed runs to start off a 75-yard touchdown drive to open the third quarter.
From Washington Times ● Oct. 16, 2023
In Philipps’s meticulously assembled and brilliantly written account, he is not a warrior driven mad by the stress of combat, a good guy gone rogue or a victim of a brutalizing culture.
From New York Times ● Sep. 3, 2021
Three thousand children crowded into this ugly brutalizing school that had facilities for only one thousand.
From "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn" by Betty Smith
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