These words mean to make submissive, compliant or subdued by inspiring fear. Intimidate is the most general word, precisely directed to this concept. To intimidate someone is to manipulate him by using his own fear or weakness against him as a psychological weapon. The person who sets out to intimidate another aims to fill the chosen victim with a dread of unpleasant consequences to come if he does not comply.

• The employer tried to intimidate his employees from staging rolling strikes by threatening to close down the entire plant; The parents were intimidated into paying the ransom by the kidnapper’s threatening notes; The quiet levelling of the highwayman’s pistol intimidated the driver of the stage.

Intimidation may involve the use of violence or coercion to influence the conduct of another or to compel his consent; but when actual force is used it constitutes a threat of future force that would be more deadly: The accused’s friends intimidated the witness by bashing him in a dark alley. A person may also be intimidated through his own shyness, cowardice, sense of inadequacy, or fear or embarrassment: so intimidated by the speaker’s fame that they were afraid to ask him questions; intimidated by the surly waiter’s sneer into leaving a larger tip than they had intended.

Cow and overawe point both to the cause and to the effect of intimidation . Cow in this sense comes from an Old Norse word meaning to tyrannize over. To cow someone is to reduce him to a weak, submissive state, breaking his spirit or overcoming his resistance by the use or threat of superior force: a tyrant of a father who cowed his children’s spirits; cringing slaves, cowed by the overseer’s whip; suddenly cowed by the sight of a policeman. Overawe does not imply the kind of fear and trembling suggested by cow . Instead, it focuses on reverential fear – respect that subdues or restrains one.

• The peasants were overawed by the vastness of the cathedral; The explorer overawed the natives with his fine clothes and fancy equipment.

Daunt and dismay deal specifically with the kind of effect caused by intimidation. To daunt is to dishearten, frighten or otherwise discourage someone from going on; it implies a loss of the will to keep trying.

• Outback life daunted her and she went back to Sydney; No number of failures and disappointments could daunt him in his quest for a cure.

Dismay suggests a sinking feeling in the pit of the stomach. It points to a sense of hopeless discouragement in the face of obstacles or paralysing fear in the face of a threat.

• Their utter refusal to compromise dismayed him and left him at a loss; a contender in the ring, dismayed by the size and fierceness of his opponent.

The remaining words all focus on the act of intimidating another. Stand over , terrorize and bully imply the deliberate incitement of fear as a method of intimidation. Stand over is an informal idiom meaning to adopt a threatening attitude without necessarily involving direct violence. He will continue the work no matter who tries to stand over him; stand-over tactics. Terrorize is the more formal word and presupposes a much greater degree of violence. It has political associations, often applying to unlawful acts of violence committed in an attempt to overthrow a government: Rebels terrorized the countryside, staging midnight raids, planting land mines in the roads, and exacting tribute from the people. Bully is much more informal. As a noun, it denotes a swaggering, aggressive person who is usually cowardly at heart and who intimidates weaker people. Children use the word for a larger or stronger child, usually a bigger boy, who picks on smaller or weaker ones. Hence to bully is to push others around in this way, whether through brute force or through verbal taunts or threats: They had stood for hours, but he bullied them into letting him break into the queue ahead of them. Bulldoze falls between bully and terrorize in force. It is a slang term that originated in the United States, pointing to intimidation through the use of violence or coercion or through the threat of reprisals. Like stand over, it may imply force of will or exercise of abstract power rather than physical force: They tried to bulldoze him, but he stuck to his guns. Bulldoze is frequently used for this notion of unrelenting pressure to get something done quickly, against all objection or demand for consideration.

• The bill was bulldozed through Parliament in the last minutes of the sitting; one obdurate juror trying to bulldoze the others into changing their minds.

Browbeat implies mental harassment rather than a physical attack. To browbeat someone is to intimidate or cow him, or to try to do so, by means of a stern, overbearing, condemnatory manner. Browbeat may imply haughty, contemptuous or rude treatment, or a bombardment of some kind that goes on without respite.

• He was a meek little man, the perfect victim, browbeaten by his boss at the office and by his wife at home; The lawyer started browbeating the witness, trying to upset him and discredit his testimony.