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Definitions

brutalize

[broot-l-ahyz] / ˈbrut lˌaɪz /




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.

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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

He said the new commissioner should also commit to firing police officers who “abuse, harass, brutalize, and kill” and promote transparency by releasing more disciplinary records.

From Seattle Times ● Jan. 6, 2022

“It will consume government. It will brutalize people. It will cost taxpayers millions of dollars,” he said.

From Washington Times ● Aug. 10, 2021

The weight of the sand began to brutalize her shoulders.

From "The Princess Bride" by William Goldman

Any overacting brutalizes Cheever's prose; mugging is the artistic equivalent of a mugging.

From Time Magazine Archive

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

All punishment which is not tempered with forgiveness is brutal; and brutalizes both punisher and punished.

From Practical Ethics by William De Witt Hyde

That hardens people, and brutalizes them, but somehow we mostly admire them and applaud them for their success against odds.

From The Quality of Mercy by William Dean Howells

A sophist is a forger, and this forger sometimes brutalizes good sense.

From The Man Who Laughs by Victor Hugo

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

Do we want them to leave prison alienated, brutalized, stigmatized and lacking in employable skills?

From New York Times ● Mar. 25, 2023

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

In a few seconds the CrossWave had squirted to its top speed of 55 mph and was skipping across the gentle swells in a blaring, brutalizing ecstasy.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 10, 2026

Dahlia and Mark sort through the brutalizing, even lethal implications for asylum seekers and more than 1 million recipients of temporary protected status, or TPS.

From Slate ● Jun. 25, 2026

The central deviation is that this “Speak No Evil,” with its more pronounced humor and catharsis, treats the other film’s scenario as a ghastly comedy of manners rather than as a brutalizing, unheroic descent.

From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 12, 2024

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

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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