"bear down on" meaning in English

See bear down on in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Verb

Forms: bears down on [present, singular, third-person], bearing down on [participle, present], bore down on [past], borne down on [participle, past]
Head templates: {{en-verb|bear<,,bore,borne> down on}} bear down on (third-person singular simple present bears down on, present participle bearing down on, simple past bore down on, past participle borne down on)
  1. To approach someone in a very determined way.

Inflected forms

{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "bears down on",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "bearing down on",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "bore down on",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "borne down on",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "bear<,,bore,borne> down on"
      },
      "expansion": "bear down on (third-person singular simple present bears down on, present participle bearing down on, simple past bore down on, past participle borne down on)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English phrasal verbs formed with \"down\"",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English phrasal verbs formed with \"on\"",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with 1 entry",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with entries",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "I could see the headmaster bearing down on me, and looked hopelessly round for a means of escape.",
          "type": "example"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1918 September–November, Edgar Rice Burroughs, “The Land That Time Forgot”, in The Blue Book Magazine, Chicago, Ill.: Story-press Corp., →OCLC; republished as chapter IV, in Hugo Gernsback, editor, Amazing Stories, (please specify |part=I to III), New York, N.Y.: Experimenter Publishing, 1927, →OCLC:",
          "text": "We were moving slowly up the river as the creature bore down upon us with distended jaws. The long neck was far outstretched, and the four flippers with which it swam were working with powerful strokes, carrying it forward at a rapid pace.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2011 December 27, Mike Henson, “Norwich 0 - 2 Tottenham”, in BBC Sport:",
          "text": "Their first clear opportunity duly came courtesy of a mistake from Russell Martin, who was hustled off the ball by Bale, but the midfielder scooped his finish well over the top as he bore down on the Norwich goal.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2019 February 27, Drachinifel, 10:57 from the start, in The Battle of Samar - Odds? What are those?, archived from the original on 2022-11-03:",
          "text": "With reports of the Japanese forces bearing down on them confirmed, Rear Admiral Sprague orders his ships east, heading towards a series of rain squalls, hoping for concealment. This will hopefully delay the Japanese closing the range, and also draw them away from the much-more-vulnerable landing ships.",
          "type": "quote"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To approach someone in a very determined way."
      ],
      "id": "en-bear_down_on-en-verb-A9uQ2PA9",
      "links": [
        [
          "approach",
          "approach"
        ],
        [
          "determined",
          "determined"
        ]
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "bear down on"
}
{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "bears down on",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "bearing down on",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "bore down on",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "borne down on",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "bear<,,bore,borne> down on"
      },
      "expansion": "bear down on (third-person singular simple present bears down on, present participle bearing down on, simple past bore down on, past participle borne down on)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English lemmas",
        "English multiword terms",
        "English phrasal verbs",
        "English phrasal verbs formed with \"down\"",
        "English phrasal verbs formed with \"on\"",
        "English terms with quotations",
        "English terms with usage examples",
        "English verbs",
        "Pages with 1 entry",
        "Pages with entries"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "I could see the headmaster bearing down on me, and looked hopelessly round for a means of escape.",
          "type": "example"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1918 September–November, Edgar Rice Burroughs, “The Land That Time Forgot”, in The Blue Book Magazine, Chicago, Ill.: Story-press Corp., →OCLC; republished as chapter IV, in Hugo Gernsback, editor, Amazing Stories, (please specify |part=I to III), New York, N.Y.: Experimenter Publishing, 1927, →OCLC:",
          "text": "We were moving slowly up the river as the creature bore down upon us with distended jaws. The long neck was far outstretched, and the four flippers with which it swam were working with powerful strokes, carrying it forward at a rapid pace.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2011 December 27, Mike Henson, “Norwich 0 - 2 Tottenham”, in BBC Sport:",
          "text": "Their first clear opportunity duly came courtesy of a mistake from Russell Martin, who was hustled off the ball by Bale, but the midfielder scooped his finish well over the top as he bore down on the Norwich goal.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2019 February 27, Drachinifel, 10:57 from the start, in The Battle of Samar - Odds? What are those?, archived from the original on 2022-11-03:",
          "text": "With reports of the Japanese forces bearing down on them confirmed, Rear Admiral Sprague orders his ships east, heading towards a series of rain squalls, hoping for concealment. This will hopefully delay the Japanese closing the range, and also draw them away from the much-more-vulnerable landing ships.",
          "type": "quote"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To approach someone in a very determined way."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "approach",
          "approach"
        ],
        [
          "determined",
          "determined"
        ]
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "bear down on"
}

Download raw JSONL data for bear down on meaning in English (2.6kB)


This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-11-06 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-10-02 using wiktextract (fbeafe8 and 7f03c9b). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.