intimidate
verb
Simple meaning
To make timid or afraid.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
ihntimihdaytSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ɪnˈtɪmɪdeɪt
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
verb
transitive
To make timid or afraid; to cause to feel fear or nervousness; to deter, especially by threats of violence.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- C2 · Proficient
- Frequency
- Uncommon
- Typical Use
- Primarily written
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
This meaning: To make timid or afraid; to cause to feel fear or nervousness; to deter, especially by threats of violence.
Used this way, intimidate is a reasonably familiar word with a clearly unfavourable pull. It comes across as direct, sometimes bluntly so.
- Emotional tone
- Negative
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Moderate
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- Serious and weighty
- Usage feel
- Blunt and forceful
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use intimidate
- “Her boss intimidates her.”verb
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
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Related Words
Connected to the same idea, not synonyms.
- threatenverb
- intimidationnoun
- harassmentnoun
- harmnoun
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.