How to Use bracing in a Sentence

bracing

adjective
  • The bright lime juice and herbaceous cilantro are most bracing straight out of the blender.
    — Bon Appetit, 28 May 2018
  • Take the plunge into the bracing water from the pier on the far side of the cove.
    — Elaine Glusac, New York Times, 27 Feb. 2020
  • Plus, the seat is heated to make chilly winter mornings a bit less bracing.
    — Adrienne So, Wired, 18 Feb. 2020
  • Wade hit the bracing quarterback hard enough to keep him down on the turf for a few minutes.
    — BostonGlobe.com, 29 Dec. 2019
  • Read on for seven places to seek out for a bracing taste of Danish harbor bathing.
    — Regan Stephens, Vogue, 23 Jan. 2023
  • That proved to be more bracing than encouraging.
    — Evan Clark, Footwear News, 28 Jan. 2026
  • The bracing question is whether Putin might test that proposition.
    — Bill Powell, Newsweek, 7 Oct. 2014
  • But a bracing and wince-inducing mid-game twist shakes up this familiar cadence.
    — Lewis Gordon, Vulture, 3 Dec. 2025
  • Work off your meal with a bracing hike to the top of Mount Baldhead for spectacular views.
    — Kat Chen, Condé Nast Traveler, 6 Mar. 2025
  • On this day, an oyster shooter ($10) allowed for a bracing sampling of the house bloody mary (Pow!
    — Amy Drew Thompson, The Orlando Sentinel, 5 June 2026
  • Ironically, a new and far more bracing example of the genre was just getting underway across town.
    — Christopher Knight, latimes.com, 24 May 2018
  • And that’s the most bracing aspect of this exploration of real-life stories, performed in large part by people who can relate to them.
    — Matthew J. Palm, OrlandoSentinel.com, 9 Apr. 2018
  • Order the pancake of the day, which comes with a tiny beaker of real maple syrup, or one of the breakfast sandwiches, plus a bracing glass of beet lemonade.
    — Doug MacCash, NOLA.com, 19 Oct. 2017
  • The spices in this chai tea are warm and bracing, with all of the antioxidants and antibacterial properties that go along with tea and spices.
    — Anna Thomas Bates, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, 3 Jan. 2018
  • At dessert, the humble French pudding dessert pot de crème carried the bracing jolt of Mexican chocolate.
    — Mike Sutter, ExpressNews.com, 9 Jan. 2020
  • And the true watchers of the wall were there for all of it, responding to the bracing action with some excellent Game of Thrones memes.
    — Ashley Hoffman, Time, 21 Aug. 2017
  • Those horror elements and intrusions from Death provide a bracing sense of unease and distance.
    — Vulture, 5 June 2023
  • Now, a metallic casket holding Gentry’s remains held a stark and bracing presence, solo, at center stage.
    — Nancy Kruh, PEOPLE.com, 15 Sep. 2017
  • Hello Mary is an instant contender for 2023’s most bracing entrance to the stage, sharp and self-assured.
    — Simon Vozick-Levinson, Rolling Stone, 2 Nov. 2022
  • The film is trying quite hard to be a bracing and immersive depiction of rehabilitation’s hard toil.
    — Richard Lawson, IndieWire, 5 Sep. 2025
  • The film won the Berlinale Golden Bear for its bracing portrayal of life in modern-day Iran.
    — Etan Vlessing, The Hollywood Reporter, 10 Apr. 2020
  • At a time when many of us Americans feel a sense of national decline, Bono has a bracing alternative view.
    — David Brooks, The Atlantic, 31 Oct. 2022
  • Tossed with some of the vegetable’s green leaves and a bracing garlic-anchovy dressing, the salad pairs beautifully with rich pastas and roasted meats.
    — Saveur Editors, Saveur, 30 Oct. 2025
  • That's why an approach that is poison to a good chunk of the political and media world could be a bracing tonic for the president's supporters in the midterms.
    — Howard Kurtz, Fox News, 20 June 2018
  • Indeed, the most bracing thing about the album is Cyrus’s steadfast rejection of commitment, monogamy, or even romantic love as be-alls and end-alls.
    — Spencer Kornhaber, The Atlantic, 3 Dec. 2020
  • In all of these cases, technology feels big, strange, relentless, but also mind-expanding and appealing—a bracing wave that will sweep you up.
    — Joshua Rothman, New Yorker, 21 Oct. 2025
  • Her evisceration of these egotistical wannabes — everybody will recognize at least a few of the characters — might be even more bracing at close range.
    — Margaret Gray, latimes.com, 4 May 2018
  • In this era, ogival windows and flying buttresses would be more bracing than yet another thicket of computerized-looking shapes.
    — D. T. Max, New Yorker, 15 Sep. 2025
  • Yellen's grace note demonstrates that even as some rules are getting looser, regulators still wield what bankers should consider a bracing amount of discretion in applying them.
    — Tory Newmyer, Washington Post, 5 Feb. 2018
  • Cupid’s Undie Run is a more bracing affair, where hundreds of folks scamper through the city streets wearing nothing but their undercrackers.
    — Luann Gibbs, Cincinnati.com, 10 Feb. 2020

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'bracing.' 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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