How to Use strongman in a Sentence

strongman

noun
  • The cross was not meant to be a stage prop for strongmen.
    — Otis Moss Iii, Chicago Tribune, 28 June 2026
  • The strength of a civic government was no match for a strongman.
    — Jonathon Keats, Forbes, 3 Jan. 2023
  • Last but not least among the tools of the strongman is corruption.
    — Federico Finchelstein, The New Republic, 3 Nov. 2020
  • Trump during his four-day tour embraced strongmen in ways new even for him.
    — Bloomberg, Mercury News, 16 May 2025
  • And, of course, the strongman isn’t one to play a supporting role.
    — William Pesek, Forbes, 2 Sep. 2021
  • Both have ties to strongmen and a taste for tariffs and fossil fuels.
    — Lauren Collins, The New Yorker, 7 Dec. 2024
  • Why would the Iraqi strongman have lied to his own generals?
    — Arkansas Online, 10 Mar. 2026
  • The two laugh and shake hands after the Icelandic strongman sets him back on his feet.
    — Ashley Boucher, PEOPLE.com, 13 Aug. 2019
  • Both were sent to the strongman’s religious court and sentenced to death.
    — Anand Gopal, The New Yorker, 6 Sep. 2021
  • The right wanted a tariff strongman.
    — Newsweek Editors, MSNBC Newsweek, 31 Mar. 2026
  • The general can either go along with them, or go the way of other strongmen.
    — The Economist, 29 Aug. 2019
  • An alarming number of Iraqis would prefer to have a strongman in charge.
    — The Economist, 10 May 2018
  • Every strongman and would-be strongman in power today will be dead, at some point.
    — Stephen Kotkin, Foreign Affairs, 16 Dec. 2025
  • But the pandemic has also scrambled the plans of those same strongmen.
    — Declan Walsh, New York Times, 6 Apr. 2020
  • Even short-term strongman rule carries long-term consequences.
    — Rick Singh, The Orlando Sentinel, 8 Jan. 2026
  • Often, data collectors are forced to work with the strongmen in charge.
    — Alex Gladstein, The New Republic, 26 Apr. 2018
  • The strongman praised the martial law era and in some ways emulated it with his bloody six-year war on drugs.
    — Michael E. Miller and Regine Cabato, Anchorage Daily News, 20 June 2022
  • Even with the former strongman now sitting in a US jail, that’s a hard sell.
    — Peter Millard, Bloomberg, 12 Mar. 2026
  • Trump has had his best intentions thwarted by a strongman before.
    — Mira Rapp-Hooper, Foreign Affairs, 29 Oct. 2025
  • Nor do strongmen have a pristine record as economic stewards.
    — Alaa Shahine Salha, semafor.com, 16 Feb. 2026
  • Some of the worst massacres in modern history have followed the ouster of strongmen.
    — James Stavridis, Time, 12 July 2018
  • This strongman rhetoric hides the fact that the whole declaration was a performance.
    — CNN, 25 Aug. 2022
  • America does not belong to strongmen, greedy billionaires, or those who rule through fear.
    — Marina Johnson, Louisville Courier Journal, 28 Mar. 2026
  • America does not belong to strongmen, greedy billionaires, or those who rule through fear.
    — Marina Johnson, Louisville Courier Journal, 24 Mar. 2026
  • But the provincial strongman has been in the crosshairs several times before.
    — Agustino Fontevecchia, Forbes, 28 Dec. 2022
  • Hifter, the strongman of the east Libya government, based in Benghazi.
    — Samy Magdy, The Christian Science Monitor, 12 Sep. 2023
  • The trouble, to paraphrase Adam Phillips, is that strongmen tend to bring out the strongman in us all.
    — Emily Chamlee-Wright, Washington Post, 6 Feb. 2026
  • The effect is not on the nose so much as swinging at it with a hammer, in the manner of a fairground strongman contest.
    — Rahel Aima, New Republic, 23 Oct. 2017
  • That eye-popping price looked less like an investment and more like a hefty tribute offered up to a corrupt strongman.
    — Alison Willmore, Vulture, 31 Jan. 2026
  • The half-mortal strongman must become a hero to rejoin the gods on Mount Olympus.
    — Los Angeles Times, 30 Aug. 2019

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