Word.ws English Dictionary

brought to bear

brought to bear is the simple past and past participle of bring to bear.

Meaning of bring to bear

Verb

bring to bear (third-person singular simple present brings to bear, present participle bringing to bear, simple past and past participle brought to bear)

  1. (transitive) To aim a weapon at a target.
    • The battleship brought her main guns to bear on the fort.
  2. (idiomatic, transitive) To apply; to employ something to achieve an intended effect.
    • to bring pressure to bear on someone, to bring influence to bear on someone

Questions about brought to bear

What is brought to bear the simple past and past participle of?
Brought to bear is the simple past and past participle of bring to bear.

Words near brought to bear in the dictionary

  1. brought to
  2. brought to a boil
  3. brought to a close
  4. brought to a head
  5. brought to an end
  6. brought to bear
  7. brought to bed
  8. brought to ground
  9. brought to heel
  10. brought to justice
  11. brought to life

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: brought to bear (page history and authors); bring to bear (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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