Word.ws English Dictionary

How to use intimidate in a sentence

18 example sentences · verb

Intimidate means to make timid or afraid; to cause to feel fear or nervousness; to deter, especially by threats of violence. Example: “He's trying to intimidate you. If you ignore him, hopefully he'll stop.”

Examples of intimidate by meaning

verbTo make timid or afraid; to cause to feel fear or nervousness; to deter, especially by threats of violence.

  • He's trying to intimidate you. If you ignore him, hopefully he'll stop.
  • His father tried to intimidate his son into staying, threatening him with banishment and a possible beating.2018, Nnedi Okorafor, Who Fears Death, HarperVoyager, page 168

More sentences with intimidate

  • They swaggered around in their Smokey Bears, as if a felt hat would intimidate a short-fused grenade.2011, Robert Buettner, Orphanage: Jason Wander series - Book 1, →ISBN. From the entry smokey bear
  • Feared by the workers, the capangas intimidate laborers and driver off small farmers with bulldozers.2010, Nikolas Kozloff, No Rain in the Amazon, page 163. From the entry capanga
  • In many circumstances, religion has been used to bully and intimidate women and deprive them of power.2009 March 27, Madeleine Bunting, “Patriarchal, yes. All bad? No”, in The Guardian. From the entry gilded cage
  • If this Sidhe, this so-called cousin, thought he could outhaughty me, intimidate me, he was sadly mistaken.2009, Maria Lima, Blood Bargain, →ISBN. From the entry outhaughty
  • The White House is not going to intimidate me.2026 June 4, David Pakman, 0:00; 3:41 from the start, in Trump's White House WANTS TO END MY SHOW (Politics), The David Pakman Show, via…. From the entry White House
  • Wang Yi blatantly intimidates the world at the UNGA.2022, “September 25, 2022”, in Mainland Affairs Council, archived from the original on 04 Mar 2023, Chronology. From the entry authoritarian
  • Perla Lowell's marriage was a painful sham, so now—penniless and alone —she refuses to let this dark-hearted Greek intimidate her.2014, Maya Blake, What the Greek Can't Resist, →ISBN. From the entry dark-hearted
  • His former running buddy was a big man who'd learned early how to use his size to intimidate people.2013, Sandra Kitt, Family Affairs, Open Road Media, →ISBN. From the entry bogart
  • Actually this section permits the employer to intimidate and coerce employees in the exercise of their rights guaranteed by the act.1953, United States. Congress. Senate. Committee on Labor and Public Welfare, Hearings, page 3631. From the entry free speech
  • But accusations of TERFery have been sufficient to intimidate many people, institutions and organisations I once admired, who’re cowering before the tactics of the playground.2020 June 10, J. K. Rowling, J.K. Rowling Writes about Her Reasons for Speaking out on Sex and Gender Issues. From the entry TERFery
  • Far less likely to intimidate your junior genealogist is the Internet, with its databases, message and bulletin boards, online collections, and more.2003, Karen Frisch, Creating Junior Genealogists, →ISBN. From the entry junior
  • Ash cautioned wine and food fans to ignore “smelliers,” his less-than-kind term for pompous wine snobs who intentionally intimidate those without a degree in wine-ology.2003 March 27, Dee Hobsbawn-Smith, “John Ash: Out of the classroom, Into the fire”, in Calgary Herald, page E7. From the entry wine-ology
  • The experience was something like going before the Daughters of the American Revolution and advocating communism; but then, doughty matronly bosoms always intimidate me.1964, Japan Quarterly. From the entry doughty
  • But when I turned pro, I knew I needed a really badass name, 'cuz it intimidates n00bs, who will disconnect just when they see me show up.2006 September, Jeff Green, quoting D3thf4art [pseudonym; Stanley Lipschitz], “Interview with a Pro Gamer”, in Jeff Green, editor…. From the entry weaksauce
  • In fact, many members of Congress sought to influence or halt decision making altogether—firing shots across the bow designed to intimidate the adjudicators before a decision could be made.2000, William B. Gould IV, “Congress Instructs the NLRB”, in Labored Relations: Law, Politics, and the NLRB—A Memoir, Cambridge, Mass.…. From the entry shot across the bow
  • Well, almost anyone: The Germanic descendants of the Anglos and the Saxons and occasional eccentrics among widely scattered ethnic groups do, and that tends to intimidate the rest of us.1993, Richard J. Israel, The Kosher Pig: And Other Curiosities of Modern Jewish Life. From the entry Jewish Standard Time

Meaning of intimidate

  1. verb To make timid or afraid; to cause to feel fear or nervousness; to deter, especially by threats of violence.

Full definition of intimidate

Questions about intimidate in a sentence

How do you use intimidate in a sentence?
Intimidate is used as a verb. For example: “He's trying to intimidate you. If you ignore him, hopefully he'll stop.”
What is a short sentence with intimidate?
“The White House is not going to intimidate me.”
What does intimidate mean?
Intimidate means to make timid or afraid; to cause to feel fear or nervousness; to deter, especially by threats of violence.

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: intimidate (page history and authors) and the entries each sentence comes from. Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the sentences, left out offensive ones and quotations older than 1900, and marked the word in each. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this page: “How to use intimidate in a sentence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sentences/intimidate. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.