strong-arm

Related to strong-arm: strong-arm tactics

strong-arm

1. adjective Of or relating to the use or threat of physical force, violence, or coercion. The paramilitary group became known for using strong-arm tactics to establish their authority in the war-torn region.
2. verb To coerce someone or some group to do something through physical force or violence or the threat thereof. The mob came in and strong-armed local business owners into paying protection money. The company hired security personnel to strong-arm protestors out of the drilling site.
3. verb To force someone or some group to do something by exploiting a position of power, authority, or advantage. Many believe the company is leveraging the ubiquity of their operating system in order to strong-arm customers into accepting their recent questionable business practices. The board of directors is strong-armed me out of the company because of my political beliefs.
Farlex Dictionary of Idioms.

strong-arm

1. tv. to force someone (to do something). Spike tried to strong-arm Frank into cooperating.
2. mod. forceful; by physical force. The strong-arm approach got him nowhere.
McGraw-Hill's Dictionary of American Slang and Colloquial Expressions
See also:
  • strong-arm tactics
  • bulletproof
  • gazoony
  • inside baseball
  • appropriate for
  • as (something) as the next man/woman/person
  • as as the next man
  • jet-setting
  • man to man
  • man-to-man
References in periodicals archive
Though such strong-arm tactics have been the norm under military dictatorships, they cannot be tolerated in a democratic dispensation.
This year's regular Diet session will be long remembered for three things: an incumbent minister's shocking suicide amid a political funds scandal; depressing revelations about pension record-keeping failures that deepened public distrust of the pension system; and the ruling camp's strong-arm tactics of using its numerical superiority to bulldoze bills through the two chambers.
Just last spring, the United States joined forces with Iran, Iraq, Libya, Sudan, Syria, and the Vatican (what a panoply of enlightenment) to strong-arm the United Nations Special Session on Children."
Rivers of urine will have eroded the Fourth Amendment--our nation's strictest restraint on the overreaching and strong-arm tendencies of some government police agents.
The National Post reports that Fortis "is using its monopoly power [to] shut out local power producers, keep out imported Mexican power, deny Belize consumers low-cost power and undermine Betize's fastest growing industry, ecotourism." Belize environmental leader Tony Gatel has traveled to the Toronto Stock Exchange to publicize Fortis' strong-arm tactics.
Yet, as broadcaster Martyn Lewis comments, `Everywhere there is war there are people trying to build peace.' The harrowing events in the Middle East emphasize that securocratic solutions and strong-arm tactics for the most part only fuel passions.
Suge's reputation for strong-arm business tactics and how that approach was used to bribe and manipulate are also documented.
Kurtz outlines complaints from the networks that detail strong-arm tactics at the White House.
"CVRD doesn't need to strong-arm iron ore prices up in talks with the Japanese and Europeans because it's already got a good return on capital from iron ore," says Thomas Mello Souza, the mining analyst at Merrill Lynch's Sao Paulo office.
The Sweeney, featuring the late John Thaw, was a top television series made in the 1970s featuring policemen using strong-arm tactics.
It also helps reposition Tabasco's former strong-arm governor Roberto Madrazo, whose political aspirations reportedly include rebuilding the PRI to its former glory with himself at its head.
Hibs boss Alex McLeish, who slammed Marseille's strong-arm tactics, watched in amazement as Zitelli was forced to fight back when madman Meite attacked him.
The Locomotives: They like to strong-arm people with their angry and hostile behavior.
LBJ's occasional strong-arm political methods are roundly condemned, though Clif White's--presented in graphic detail--are regarded as clever politics.
Nichiei Co., a nonbank moneylender under fire for strong-arm collection practices, has agreed to pay 2.5 million yen in a compromise with a former loan guarantor it threatened, the former guarantor's lawyers said Thursday.