imbrute
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English[edit]
Etymology[edit]
im- + brute. Akin to Italian imbruttire, Spanish embrutecer, Catalan embrutar
Verb[edit]
imbrute (third-person singular simple present imbrutes, present participle imbruting, simple past and past participle imbruted)
- To make brutal
- 1849, Edward Bulwer-Lytton, The Caxtons, Complete[1]:
- It was his belief in his father's indifference or dislike that hardened and imbruted him; it is only when he hears how that father loved him that I now melt his pride and curb his passions.
- To degrade to the state of a brute
- 1905, Various, The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 2[2]:
- How deep was the change, made upon the imbruted Asiatics, we may perhaps question.
- 1855, Daniel Drayton, Personal Memoir Of Daniel Drayton[3]:
- So imbruted and stupefied by slavery was this old woman, that she seemed to think the selling her boy away from her a perfectly humane, Christian and proper act, while all her indignation was turned against me, who had merely afforded the boy an opportunity of securing his freedom!
- 1851, Joseph Xavier Saintine, The Solitary of Juan Fernandez, or The Real Robinson Crusoe[4]:
- Notwithstanding all that has been said, the solitary is a man imbruted, vegetating, deprived of his crown.
References[edit]
- “imbrute”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.