How to Use strongman in a Sentence

strongman

noun
  • Too often, tyrants believe in the myth of the strongman.
    Daniel Twining, WSJ, 6 May 2022
  • The strength of a civic government was no match for a strongman.
    Jonathon Keats, Forbes, 3 Jan. 2023
  • In the 2000s, the rise of a strongman — Putin — in the Kremlin was seen in pragmatic terms in Austria.
    Souad Mekhennet, Washington Post, 5 July 2022
  • Hifter, the strongman of the east Libya government, based in Benghazi.
    Samy Magdy, The Christian Science Monitor, 12 Sep. 2023
  • It’s a father figure, a strongman figure that attracts all of the orphan souls of the world.
    John Benson, cleveland, 10 Dec. 2022
  • The strongman praised the martial law era and in some ways emulated it with his bloody six-year war on drugs.
    Michael E. Miller and Regine Cabato, Anchorage Daily News, 20 June 2022
  • More Republicans are adopting the kind of strongman rhetoric that seemed to play so well for Trump.
    Marc Fisher, Washington Post, 16 Oct. 2022
  • Venezuela’s strongman Nicolás Maduro uses the lingo of the American Left, which begins to sound like him.
    Mike Gonzalez, National Review, 18 June 2022
  • Molly — with her big eyes and modest dreams — and the way Ron Perlman’s strongman Bruno protects her.
    Peter Debruge, Variety, 2 Dec. 2021
  • This strongman rhetoric hides the fact that the whole declaration was a performance.
    CNN, 25 Aug. 2022
  • But the provincial strongman has been in the crosshairs several times before.
    Agustino Fontevecchia, Forbes, 28 Dec. 2022
  • Sean Penn, that excellent actor, was a friend and backer of Hugo Chávez, the Venezuelan strongman.
    Jay Nordlinger, National Review, 2 May 2022
  • Stoltman's older brother, Luke Stoltman, who is a strongman as well, encouraged him to go to the gym.
    Natasha Dye, PEOPLE.com, 5 July 2022
  • So he was appalled when the strongman’s son emerged as the front-runner for president earlier this year.
    Michael E. Miller and Regine Cabato, Anchorage Daily News, 20 June 2022
  • The militaries of successful strongmen are often drawn from the region or ethnic group that has strong ties to the leader.
    Angele Latham, USA TODAY, 5 Jan. 2024
  • In the clip, Mill can be seen performing the javelin press, an old-school strongman exercise which involves lifting a bar overhead with one arm.
    Philip Ellis, Men's Health, 21 June 2022
  • The javelin press may not become a better track and field athlete, but hoisting a barbell overhead with one hand does gives off an old-time sideshow strongman vibe.
    Jeff Tomko, Men's Health, 21 May 2022
  • At one point, an ally of the Chechen strongman Ramzan Kadyrov appeared in the ownership register.
    Paul Sonne, New York Times, 17 Dec. 2023
  • From the days of the Greeks, rule by oligarchs doesn’t last long, as a strongman arises and, in one way or another, at least clips their wings and at most plucks and roasts them, metaphorically of course.
    Brian T. Allen, National Review, 2 Apr. 2022
  • Only 6 percent of Germans and 9 percent of Swedes are seduced by strongmen.
    Brian Klaas, The Atlantic, 26 July 2023
  • All the while, Orban presides over a Hungarian polity in the heart of Europe that would be familiar to a strongman like Putin.
    Washington Post, 3 Apr. 2022
  • The Chechen strongman’s claims, however, have not been verified.
    Forbes Staff Reports, Forbes, 4 Mar. 2022
  • But the election of Mr. Duterte as president in 2016 brought a return to a strongman-type leader, which voters have now doubled-down on with Marcos Jr.
    David Rising and Jim Gomez, The Christian Science Monitor, 10 May 2022
  • What began in each case as promises by a strongman to make society fairer has ended in tears.
    Mary Anastasia O’Grady, WSJ, 26 Dec. 2021
  • Shaw leaves the world of competitive strongman with the second-most number of wins in the history of World's Strongest Man, along with a reputation as one of one of the true greats of the sport.
    Philip Ellis, Men's Health, 12 May 2023
  • In a testament to the enduring cultural power of the strongman, both Elon Musk and Donald Trump have their own display.
    Anna Kaufman, USA TODAY, 26 Mar. 2023
  • Marcos was a strongman president whose 20-year regime is defined by graft, corruption, and a slate of human rights crimes.
    Anne Quito, Quartz, 6 July 2022
  • The comments helped seed a favorable view of Putin’s strongman style of governance among some Americans.
    Sheera Frenkel, BostonGlobe.com, 23 Mar. 2022
  • The comments helped seed a favorable view of Mr. Putin’s strongman style of governance among some Americans.
    New York Times, 23 Mar. 2022
  • The strongman-style leader was finally ousted in 2000 and later jailed, but corruption and other charges have marred the terms of most of his successors.
    Los Angeles Times, 11 Dec. 2022

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'strongman.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

Last Updated: