How to Use bracing in a Sentence

bracing

adjective
  • But there is nothing more bracing — and vitalizing — than immersing yourself in an unforgiving environment.
    Hanya Yanagihara, New York Times, 10 May 2023
  • 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
  • The bright lime juice and herbaceous cilantro are most bracing straight out of the blender.
    Bon Appetit, 28 May 2018
  • Wade hit the bracing quarterback hard enough to keep him down on the turf for a few minutes.
    BostonGlobe.com, 29 Dec. 2019
  • Plus, the seat is heated to make chilly winter mornings a bit less bracing.
    Adrienne So, Wired, 18 Feb. 2020
  • Read on for seven places to seek out for a bracing taste of Danish harbor bathing.
    Regan Stephens, Vogue, 23 Jan. 2023
  • 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
  • A few decades later, the bracing scent had become a far more populist perfume.
    Brennan Kilbane, Allure, 30 Mar. 2018
  • 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
  • The bracing question is whether Putin might test that proposition.
    Bill Powell, Newsweek, 7 Oct. 2014
  • 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
  • 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
  • That is a bracing message in an era of cosy political pacts.
    The Economist, 12 Apr. 2018
  • May there be a bracing aroma of brine in the air in honor of your bicentennial, Mr. Melville.
    Colin Fleming, Washington Post, 26 Aug. 2019
  • The most bracing pieces are sometimes the least defensible.
    Rich Lowry, National Review, 7 June 2019
  • At dessert, the humble French pudding dessert pot de crème carried the bracing jolt of Mexican chocolate.
    Mike Sutter, ExpressNews.com, 9 Jan. 2020
  • The most beautiful and most bracing exhibition in town is also a rare event, the first solo show in nearly seven years—and the first in Chelsea—of Celmins’s work.
    The New Yorker, 31 Mar. 2017
  • 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
  • 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
  • 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
  • Yet plenty of ambitious actors chose to go it alone on Boston-area stages in 2022, and the result was some of the year’s most bracing and memorable performances.
    Don Aucoin, BostonGlobe.com, 9 Dec. 2022
  • 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
  • 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
  • Ironically, a new and far more bracing example of the genre was just getting underway across town.
    Christopher Knight, latimes.com, 24 May 2018
  • IGK’s new Walnut Scrub, with a bracing peppermint scent, cools off the scalp after irritation from hot tools (and hot weather).
    Chloe Atkins, Vogue, 22 July 2017
  • One of the most bracing facts about Michigan's rise in cases is that nearly 40% of the state's residents have already received one dose of the vaccine, according to the state's tracking system.
    Maeve Reston, CNN, 11 Apr. 2021
  • 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
  • The tariffs Trump envisioned, which would begin at five per cent but could reach as high as twenty-five per cent by the fall, are a particularly bracing prospect at the current moment.
    Jonathan Blitzer, The New Yorker, 19 June 2019
  • 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
  • That book also told its story via a series of short, bracing paragraphs — many of them a single sentence or two — that easily could stand alone as tiny, Lydia Davis-like stories.
    Jake Cline, Washington Post, 27 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.

Last Updated: