How to Use bear down in a Sentence

bear down

verb
  • That was a lot of moose bearing down on me.
    — Fred Bear, Outdoor Life, 11 June 2026
  • The city is bearing down on top of the viewer.
    — Adriane Quinlan, Curbed, 23 Feb. 2026
  • Should Bear fans not only bear down, but get a grip?
    — Scott Simon, NPR, 28 Feb. 2026
  • Drought had begun to bear down by the time the fires started.
    — Zoë Schlanger, The Atlantic, 8 Jan. 2025
  • The universe and my mother bear down.
    — Manuel Muñoz, Literary Hub, 11 Sep. 2025
  • Winds were howling, and heat bore down as flames licked the trees on the horizon.
    — Claire Rush, Fortune, 14 Aug. 2023
  • Locals sometimes lament when a new chain in town bears down on a mom-and-pop shop.
    — Chang-Tai Hsieh and Esteban Rossi-Hansberg, WSJ, 6 Feb. 2020
  • Drought was bearing down west of the Rockies, too.
    — ABC News, 1 Apr. 2026
  • The bad tooth proved obstinate, and the dentist had to bear down.
    — Washington Post, 24 Aug. 2019
  • Not to mention there’s a zombie horde bearing down from the north.
    — Tom Philip, GQ, 31 Aug. 2017
  • New York would not be the first state to bear down on its hospice sector.
    — Ava Kofman, ProPublica, 19 Dec. 2022
  • As the government bears down, three things are worth keeping in mind.
    — Bloomberg View, Twin Cities, 7 June 2019
  • Jackson dropped a nice bounce pass to Drummond, who bore down on the rim.
    — Vince Ellis, Detroit Free Press, 17 Oct. 2017
  • Stories where hurricanes don’t bear down on teenage girls and raze.
    — Jesmyn Ward, Vanity Fair, 21 Apr. 2026
  • So the patriarchy doesn’t just bear down on women.
    — Jackson McHenry, Vulture, 26 Feb. 2026
  • The ad closed with the silhouette of a man on a grassy slope, staring the bear down.
    — Sophie Pinkham, The New Republic, 3 May 2018
  • Instead, your brain should kind of notice that big truck that’s bearing down on you.
    — Bruce Y. Lee, Forbes, 15 Sep. 2024
  • Here are some must-haves for the savvy road traveler as old man winter bears down on us.
    — Josh Max, Forbes, 29 Nov. 2024
  • But our girl bears down, gets that kid out and then demands that the tiny infant be brought to her to nurse.
    — Kimberly Roots, TVLine, 6 Apr. 2025
  • Rosé has not just jumped the shark, it's jumped the whale next to the shark and the cruise ship bearing down on the whale.
    — Patrick Comiskey, latimes.com, 19 Apr. 2018
  • Nelson beared down and struck out the next hitter who attempted a squeeze bunt.
    — Dan Shulman, BostonGlobe.com, 12 June 2018
  • For fans willing to freeze on Sunday, bear down and bundle up.
    — Noel Brennan, CBS News, 11 Dec. 2025
  • She’s gone to confession for the first time in two weeks, the weight of the world around her bearing down.
    — Fran Hoepfner, Vulture, 9 Dec. 2024
  • The father will not pause bearing down on his wife and keeps his focus intent on her face.
    — Literary Hub, 15 Dec. 2025
  • Their front feet rested on their knuckles, while the hind legs bore down on the outer edge of the broad feet.
    — John Metcalfe, Mercury News, 18 Mar. 2026
  • The system could sense when the car was bearing down too quickly on someone’s rear bumper up ahead.
    — Fortune, 31 May 2018
  • This new wave of storms is bearing down on areas already buried by heavy snowfall from the past two weeks.
    — Nouran Salahieh, CNN, 13 Mar. 2023
  • This has been a year when the crises of the recent past continued to bear down, often in grim new ways.
    — John King, San Francisco Chronicle, 27 Dec. 2021
  • For the fourth time in three weeks, a nor’easter is bearing down on New York City.
    — Adam K. Raymond, Daily Intelligencer, 21 Mar. 2018
  • Blame bounces, or the opponents’ goalies for their saves, or the Jets for not bearing down.
    — Murat Ates, The Athletic, 25 Mar. 2025

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'bear down.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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