Word.ws English Dictionary

strong-arm

strong-arm verb: to bully, to intimidate; to coerce, to muscle.

Verb

strong-arm (third-person singular simple present strong-arms, present participle strong-arming, simple past and past participle strong-armed)

  1. (figuratively, often, transitive) To bully, to intimidate; to coerce, to muscle.
    • One of the boss’ hangers-on
      Comes to call at times you least expect
      Try to bully ya—strong-arm you—inspire you with fear2001, Bob Dylan, “Floater (Too Much to Ask)”, in Love and Theft
    • In a five-part series on the “Extremely Passive Aggressive Roommate,” Ms. Brier […] complains about her roomie coming home at 3:27 a.m.; strong-arms that roommate into renewing their lease and then welcomes a guest to “the common space.”2023 March 14, Alexandra Jacobs, “Your Annoying Roommate Is Slaying on TikTok”, in The New York Times

Noun

strong-arm (plural strong-arms)

  1. A person who threatens or intimidates others, especially on behalf of somebody else; a goon or enforcer.
    • There used to be a goon I knew in the Bronx—a tough mockie we used to call Yussel the Bricklayer—and you never saw a guy who was more screwed up. This guy Yussel would've been a strongarm for nothing, he enjoyed it so much.2000, Irving Shulman, The Big Brokers

Adjective

strong-arm (not comparable)

  1. Bullying; extortionate.
  2. (figuratively, usually) Coercive, employing force.
    • "Some applications will fail. ORR does not need strong-arm tactics from DfT muddying the waters."2025 July 9, David Stubbings, “Network News: Open access row: DfT accused of "strong-arm tactics"”, in RAIL, number 1039, page 6

strong-arm meaning in Malayalam

strong-arm in Malayalam

forceful, aggressive, bullying
ശരീരബലമുപയോഗിച്ചു പേടിപ്പിക്കുന്ന, സമ്മർദ്ദി, നിർബ്ബന്ധപൂർവ്വം പ്രേരിപ്പിക്കുന്ന, സമ്മർദ്ദം ചെലുത്തുന്ന, മൃഗശീയശക്തിപ്രയോഗിക്കുന്ന, ആക്രമണസ്വഭാവമുള്ള

Forms of strong-arm

Verb
third-person singular presentstrong-arms
present participlestrong-arming
past participlestrong-armed
paststrong-armed
alternative formstrongarm
Noun
pluralstrong-arms

Origin of strong-arm

From strong + arm.

Questions about strong-arm

What does strong-arm mean?
Strong-arm means to bully, to intimidate; to coerce, to muscle.
What is strong-arm in Malayalam?
Strong-arm in Malayalam is ശരീരബലമുപയോഗിച്ചു പേടിപ്പിക്കുന്ന, സമ്മർദ്ദി, നിർബ്ബന്ധപൂർവ്വം പ്രേരിപ്പിക്കുന്ന. See Strong-arm meaning in Malayalam.
What part of speech is strong-arm?
Strong-arm can be a verb, a noun or an adjective.
What is the past tense of strong-arm?
The past tense of strong-arm is strong-armed.

Words near strong-arm in the dictionary

  1. strong typing
  2. strong verb
  3. strong verbs
  4. strong water
  5. strong waters
  6. strong-arm
  7. strong-armed
  8. strong-armer
  9. strong-armers
  10. strong-arming
  11. strong-arms

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: strong-arm (page history and authors); strong-arm (Olam, E.K. Kurup corpus) (dataset and license). 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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Cite this entry: “strong-arm.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/strong-arm. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.