Meaning & use
bear down
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Meanings
verbphrasal verbmedical
To push or press downward with force, especially the muscles of the lower body, as a woman does during childbirth.
Grammar: Intransitive: no object follows. Used in medical talk about labor and about pressing hard on a tool.
Patterns
- bear down on something
The midwife told her to bear down with the next contraction.
He had to bear down hard on the wrench to loosen the rusty bolt.
The doctor asked the patient to bear down as if lifting something heavy.
verbphrasal verb
To move toward someone or something in a way that feels threatening and impossible to avoid.
Grammar: Almost always followed by on: a truck bore down on us.
Patterns
- bear down on someone
- bear down on something
A huge storm was bearing down on the coast, and residents were told to leave.
The truck bore down on us at full speed.
Deadlines were bearing down on the whole team.
verbphrasal verbinformal
To put in great effort and concentration so that something gets finished.
Grammar: Often followed by on or by a plan of action: bear down on the work.
Patterns
- bear down on something
- bear down and do something
Exams are two weeks away, so it's time to bear down on your studies.
The team bore down in the last quarter and won the game.
If we bear down now, we can finish the report by Friday.
Word forms
| third person | bears down |
|---|---|
| past | bore down |
| past participle | borne down |
| -ing form | bearing down |
Common combinations
- bear down on
- The patrol boat bore down on the smugglers.
- bear down hard
- Bear down hard on the pen, or the carbon copy will not show.
- bear down and study
- After a poor mock exam, she bore down and studied every evening.
- bearing down on the coast
- The hurricane is bearing down on the coast and should arrive by morning.
- bear down on crime
- The mayor promised to bear down on petty crime.
Synonyms and how they differ
- press
- Press describes only physical pushing, while bear down also covers approaching menacingly and working with effort.
- close in
- Close in fits the threatening-approach sense, but it suggests being surrounded more than a single object rushing toward you.
- buckle down
- Buckle down is the more informal choice for settling into hard work and has no physical or threatening meaning.
- crack down
- Crack down means to act strictly against wrongdoing and is narrower than the effort sense of bear down.
Opposites
Word family
- bear verb
- to carry or support weight
- bearing noun
- the way someone carries themselves, or direction
- bearable adjective
- possible to endure
- unbearable adjective
- too painful or annoying to endure
- overbearing adjective
- domineering and unpleasantly controlling
Commonly confused: bear down or bare down?
bear down vs bare down
Bare down is a common misspelling. The verb is bear, meaning to carry or press, not bare, meaning uncovered.
Practice
A violent storm is ___ on the coast, so residents have been told to leave.
Choose one answer.
Bear down on means to approach threateningly, which suits a storm. Bear up means cope, bear out means confirm, and bear with means be patient, so none fit.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “bear down”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.