bee·tle-browed

(bē′tl-broud′)

adj.

Having thick, prominent or projecting eyebrows.

[Middle English bitel-brouwed , having grim brows, sullen, perhaps from bitil, betil, bug, beetle (from the resemblance of a pair of thick eyebrows to the tufted antennae of a cockchafer); see beetle¹, or from bitel, sharp (probably from Old English *bitol, biting, from Old English bite, bite); see bit² + brouwed (from brow, brow; see brow).]

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

beetle-browed

adj

1. having bushy or overhanging eyebrows

2. sullen in appearance; scowling

Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged, 12th Edition 2014 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2003, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2014

ThesaurusAntonymsRelated WordsSynonymsLegend:

Adj.

beetle-browed - sullen or unfriendly in appearance

scowling

unfriendly - not disposed to friendship or friendliness; "an unfriendly coldness of manner"; "an unfriendly action to take"

Translations

beetle-browed

[ˈbiːtlˈbraʊd] ADJ → cejialto, de cejas muy espesas

Collins Spanish Dictionary - Complete and Unabridged 8th Edition 2005 © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1971, 1988 © HarperCollins Publishers 1992, 1993, 1996, 1997, 2000, 2003, 2005

beetle-browed

[ˈbiːtlˌbraʊd] adj → dalle folte sopracciglia

Collins Italian Dictionary 1st Edition © HarperCollins Publishers 1995

Mentioned in

References in classic literature

Certain it is that, some fifteen or twenty years after the settlement of the town, the wooden jail was already marked with weather-stains and other indications of age, which gave a yet darker aspect to its beetle-browed and gloomy front.

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``Finding myself freed from the staple, I dragged myself up stairs as well as a man loaded with shackles, and emaciated with fasting, might; and after much groping about, I was at length directed, by the sound of a jolly roundelay, to the apartment where the worthy Sacristan, an it so please ye, was holding a devil's mass with a huge beetle-browed, broad-shouldered brother of the grey-frock and cowl, who looked much more like a thief than a clergyman.

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It was one of those rusty, moss-grown, many-peaked wooden houses, which are scattered about the streets of our elder towns, with a beetle-browed second story projecting over the foundation, as if it frowned at the novelty around it.

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He recognized him as one of the scurvy knaves who had dined at the bottom of the room the night before--a vast, beetle-browed fellow with a squint, a mop of red hair, and a genius for silence.

View in context

The crook may well be beetle-browed and shifty-eyed, the elected leader prosperous-looking and well-fed.

The easing of the burden

The Scots get a shout too - a young beetle-browed Leonid Brezhnev, who became one of the USSR's longest-serving leaders, is played by Springburn's Gerald Lepkowski from Game Of Thrones.

THE DEATH OF SATIRE; COMEDY GENIUS ON WHY HE CAN'T GET LAUGHS OUT OF THE REAL-LIFE CLOWN IN THE WHITE HOUSE Armando ditches US politics to mock feared Soviet tyrant

He always thinks everything is going to turn out badly, and that attitude has made him--literally--gray, with dark hair and a slightly beetle-browed expression.

Trolls

A great Welshman who did, of course, was Hugh Griffith, the beetle-browed son of Anglesey who graduated top of his Rada class of 300.

And the award for best speech goes to... whoever makes the shortest; The Oscars are here again, and Carolyn Hitt is looking forward to the annual procession of outrageous outfits and cringe-worthy thank-you speeches

Fossils of humans and their beetle-browed evolutionary cousins display signs of extremely extended travel that occurred between roughly 120,000 and 10,000 years ago, biological anthropologists Colin Shaw and Jay Stock of the University of Cambridge in England report.

Stone Age prime time for trekking: early human and Neandertal remains reflect life on the go

Next up was Huw Edwards, the beetle-browed Welsh newsreader who rather fancies his chances as a man of broadcasting moment, the sort of chap who reckons he brings an air of gravitas to national events.

Right Royal weekend had me reaching for the gin