bend someone's will
bend someone's will verb: to persuade or otherwise induce someone to change his or her views or to choose a different course of action.
Verb
bend someone's will (third-person singular simple present bends someone's will, present participle bending someone's will, simple past and past participle bent someone's will)
- To persuade or otherwise induce someone to change his or her views or to choose a different course of action.
- [W]hen Catherine tried to draw him to court by proposing a marriage between him and her youngest daughter Margaret, Jeanne left him at home, and went herself to court. Catherine tried in vain to bend her will.1882, Charlotte M. Yonge, History of France, ch. 5: The Wars of Religion
- [E]ven her love could not avail to bend his will. As if the hold of her arms was that of a child's he loosened it and stepped away.1912, Zane Grey, chapter 20, in Riders of the Purple Sage
Forms of bend someone's will
| third-person singular present | bends someone's will |
|---|---|
| present participle | bending someone's will |
| past participle | bent someone's will |
| past | bent someone's will |
Questions about bend someone's will
- What does bend someone's will mean?
- Bend someone's will means to persuade or otherwise induce someone to change his or her views or to choose a different course of action.
- What part of speech is bend someone's will?
- Bend someone's will is a verb.
- What is the past tense of bend someone's will?
- The past tense of bend someone's will is bent someone's will.
Words near bend someone's will in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: bend someone's will (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
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