elbowed

UK/ˈɛlbəʊd/US/ˈɛlboʊd/

elbowed is the simple past and past participle of elbow.

Adjective

elbowed (not comparable)

Having bends or corners.
- With this once long lance, now wildly elbowed, fifty years ago did Nathan Swain kill fifteen whales between a sunrise and a sunset.1851, Herman Melville, Moby-Dick
(in-compounds) Having some specific type of elbow.
(idiomatic, informal) Sharp-elbowed: pushy, having a boldly assertive manner intended to establish an advantage.
- Justices in the past have avoided such elbowed writings because their benefits have been seen as smaller than their risks.2025 July 17, Aziz Huq, “The Court’s Liberals Are Trying to Tell Americans Something”, in The Atlantic

elbow (third-person singular simple present elbows, present participle elbowing, simple past and past participle elbowed)

(transitive) To push with the elbow or elbows; to forge ahead using the elbows to assist.
- He elbowed his way through the crowd.
To strike with the elbow.
- Trumper elbowed me in the ribs and made a sign with his head. He seemed irritated now by our delay.1953, George Lamming, In the Castle of My Skin, McGraw Hill Books Company, Inc., published 1954, page 166
To nudge, jostle or push.
- Suddenly and with all her heart Kate longed to be home, back at the homestead, to participate in the rambunctious toss and jostle as breakup elbowed its way into the Park.1993, Dana Stabenow, A Fatal Thaw, →ISBN, page 105
(informal) To force (someone) to quit or lose their job so that someone else can be hired.
- The president was elbowed out of power by members of her own party.

What does elbowed mean?: Elbowed means having bends or corners.
What is elbowed the simple past and past participle of?: Elbowed is the simple past and past participle of elbow.
What part of speech is elbowed?: Elbowed is an adjective.
How do you pronounce elbowed?: Elbowed is pronounced /ˈɛlbəʊd/ (UK).

Adapted from Wiktionary: elbowed (page history and authors); elbow (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.

Last updated: 2026-09-02

Cite this entry: “elbowed.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/elbowed. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.