cornered

[ kawr-nerd ]

adjective

1. having corners (usually used in combination):

   a six-cornered room.

2. having a given number of positions; sided (usually used in combination):

   a four-cornered debate.

3. forced into an awkward, embarrassing, or inescapable position:

   a cornered debater; a cornered fox.

Other Words From

• un·cornered adjective

Word History and Origins

Origin of cornered¹

Middle English word dating back to 1300–50; corner, -ed ³

Example Sentences

Police had seized a cache of illegal weapons from Ryan Twyman’s home weeks before deputies cornered him in a car in Willowbrook, authorities said.

From Los Angeles Times

Before Thursday's announcement, the IDF believed Sinwar was cornered below ground, hiding in tunnels somewhere beneath Gaza with his bodyguards, communicating with very few people for fear that his signal will be tracked and located.

From BBC

“I was cooking at the stove in my apartment when I heard the shots,” said Waldina Quintero, a house cleaner whose apartment complex in the Tres Ríos district became a battle zone on Sept. 21, when police cornered suspects there.

From Los Angeles Times

In that one, a judge in the District of Columbia found that the company had cornered internet searches in part by making tens of billions of dollars in payments each year to companies such as Apple to lock in Google as the default search engine on iPhones and other devices.

From Los Angeles Times

Google's new features come as it faces growing challengers in the search space, where it is estimated to have cornered more than 90% of the market globally.

From BBC