Word.ws English Dictionary

feel the Bern

feel the Bern verb: to support the American politician Bernie Sanders (born 1941), especially during his 2016 or 2020 campaigns for the Democratic presidential nomination.

Verb

feel the Bern (third-person singular simple present feels the Bern, present participle feeling the Bern, simple past and past participle felt the Bern)

  1. (US, humorous, slang) To support the American politician Bernie Sanders (born 1941), especially during his 2016 or 2020 campaigns for the Democratic presidential nomination.
    • It also helped that Mr. Sanders[…]was both decidedly uncool and new to presidential politics, affording his campaign a paradoxical edge that inspired millions of young supporters to “feel the bern” and vote for him over Hillary Clinton.2019 September 20, Sydney Ember, “Young Voters Still ‘Feel the Bern,’ but Not Just for Bernie Sanders Anymore”, in The New York Times, →ISSN

Forms of feel the Bern

third-person singular presentfeels the Bern
present participlefeeling the Bern
past participlefelt the Bern
pastfelt the Bern

Origin of feel the Bern

A pun on feel the burn. Coined by People for Bernie organizer Winnie Wong.

Questions about feel the Bern

What does feel the Bern mean?
Feel the Bern means to support the American politician Bernie Sanders (born 1941), especially during his 2016 or 2020 campaigns for the Democratic presidential nomination.
What part of speech is feel the Bern?
Feel the Bern is a verb.
What is the past tense of feel the Bern?
The past tense of feel the Bern is felt the Bern.

Words near feel the Bern in the dictionary

  1. feel out
  2. feel someone's collar
  3. feel someone's pain
  4. feel sorry for
  5. feel ten feet tall
  6. feel the Bern
  7. feel the burn
  8. feel the heat
  9. feel the pinch
  10. feel twelve feet tall
  11. feel up

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: feel the Bern (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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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-feel the burn.wav.

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