1
as in forces
to cause (a person) to give in to pressure
he was muscled out of command by his opponents at military headquarters
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Recent Examples of muscles
One year later, the XFL muscles its way onto the national sports scene with its first two games.
—
Assistant Sports Editor, Los Angeles Times, 3 Feb. 2026
Gringo Films does not sound like the kind of company that muscles its way into the global animation business.
—Scott Roxborough, HollywoodReporter, 29 Oct. 2025
Assistant Sports Editor, Los Angeles Times, 3 Feb. 2026
Gringo Films does not sound like the kind of company that muscles its way into the global animation business.
—Scott Roxborough, HollywoodReporter, 29 Oct. 2025
Recent Examples of Synonyms for muscles
Verb
-
The owners will be pushing for a salary cap, and the players for some sort of mechanism that forces the bottom-end teams to spend more, like a salary floor.—
Andrew Greif,
NBC news,
28 Mar. 2026
-
When the 25-day storage wall forces a pipeline to stop, the system begins to degrade immediately.—
Siddharth Misra,
Fortune,
28 Mar. 2026
Verb
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That leaves a sicker, older, more expensive pool of enrollees, which pushes up premiums for everyone.—
Max Klaver,
Miami Herald,
31 Mar. 2026
-
Our standards, our accountability and the way the group pushes each other every day, that is what has sustained our performance independent of who the head coach is.—
Los Angeles Times,
Los Angeles Times,
31 Mar. 2026
Verb
-
The New York Times is seeking a new order that compels Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth‘s team to rescind a set of press access restrictions that a federal judge ruled unconstitutional last week.—
Ted Johnson,
Deadline,
24 Mar. 2026
-
Even so, each glimpse of what lies beyond Earth compels us to search farther.—
Big Think,
Big Think,
23 Mar. 2026
Verb
-
Charismatic and charming as ever, Gosling easily shoulders the job of being the only human onscreen for an epoch.—
Amy Nicholson,
Los Angeles Times,
18 Mar. 2026
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There is great skepticism about Ellison’s ability to make the high-wire act work while Paramount Skydance shoulders a mountain of debt supplied by a consortium that includes Middle Eastern sovereign wealth funds.—
Brent Lang,
Variety,
27 Feb. 2026
Verb
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However, the rotation of this filament clearly dominates how the galaxies within it spin, perhaps by funneling hydrogen gas along the dark-matter filament and onto the galaxies in a way that coerces their spin while providing further fuel for star formation.—
Keith Cooper,
Space.com,
4 Dec. 2025
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Haunted by the suspicious death of his ailing mother, Ali, a university professor, coerces his enigmatic gardener to execute a cold-blooded act of vengeance.—
Jill Goldsmith,
Deadline,
14 Nov. 2025
Verb
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Before the Bride elbows her way into his life, Frank, ever so lonely, retreats into the world of movies.—
Stephanie Zacharek,
Time,
4 Mar. 2026
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Chase Infiniti elbows into leading actress race Leave it to BAFTA voters to give a shout out one of the year’s biggest breakouts.—
Alex Ritman,
Variety,
27 Jan. 2026
Verb
-
The pencil-thin DQ Tower squeezes a full home into a very slender footprint, while the EONE XL takes a wider prefab approach to the same basic challenge.—
Stefan Ionescu
March 30,
New Atlas,
30 Mar. 2026
-
There’s no end to the war in sight after one month as Iran squeezes the global economy.—
Kayla Hayempour,
NBC news,
29 Mar. 2026
Cite this Entry
“Muscles.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/muscles. Accessed 4 Apr. 2026.
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