beetle-browed
Americanadjective
-
having heavy projecting eyebrows.
-
scowling or sullen.
adjective
-
having bushy or overhanging eyebrows
-
sullen in appearance; scowling
Etymology
Origin of beetle-browed
1325–75; Middle English bitel-browed, probably with bitel sharp(-edged), Old English *bitel ( beetle 1 ); brow, -ed 3
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
As a young man, he had worked on Richard Nixon’s 1968 presidential campaign, producing TV spots designed to make the fulminating, beetle-browed Nixon seem not just palatable but benevolent.
From Slate • Apr. 9, 2020
Like The Matrix two years earlier, Donnie Darko became the subject of many a beetle-browed academic monograph and much furious internet-geek debate.
From The Guardian • Dec. 19, 2016
He has, Mr. Gardiner writes, “the look of a man etched with life’s travails — beetle-browed, with shallow eye sockets, asymmetrical eyes and slightly droopy eyelids.”
From New York Times • Apr. 29, 2015
Refracted through Spall’s beetle-browed, tightly coiled characterization, most of the formative events in Turner’s life are revisited by way of fleeting memories or gruff, dismissive asides.
From Washington Post • Dec. 23, 2014
Neither my new long reach nor Chapter Eleven’s beetle-browed concentration was sufficient to counter Milton’s wicked spin or his “killer shot” which left red marks on our chests, through our clothes.
From "Middlesex: A Novel" by Jeffrey Eugenides
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
