🌪️ To approach fast 🎯 To focus effort 🤰 To push hard 🏋️ To press heavily

to bear down

4 8.1

Push the lower belly muscles during childbirth to help the baby out

phrasal verb
/bɛr daʊn/

: pujar

During labor, the nurse advised Elise to bear down to help with the delivery.

Examples

I need you to bear down and push.All right?

What to Expect When You're Expecting (2012)
Rachel, hold her hand while she bear down.

Critical Condition (1987)
When we saw her start bearing down, we took her to the toilet and let her finish there.

Blog text (17)
She was asked to bear down at each uterine contraction.

Academic text (2007)
A bowel program may be initiated with timed toileting by simply placing the child on a commode or toilet at the same time every day and encouraging him or her to bear down.

Academic text (2004)
The midwife encouraged her to bear down during each contraction for optimal results.
Remember to bear down hard when you feel the urge to push, as it helps the baby move along.

Antonyms

to relax

∞ 1.0

To feel less nervous and more calm

How Forceful

strain

72 4.3

to bear down

4 8.1

to push

∞ 1.0

to contract

52 3.0

Surface Forms

bear down infinitive

bearing down present participle

bears down third person singular

bore down past

bore down past participle

Morphology

bear + down

The constituents 'bear' (to carry/hold/endure) and 'down' (toward a lower position) combine to evoke applying weight or force downward, so a learner who knows both words could plausibly infer a sense of exerting pressure. However, 'bear' has multiple senses and the specific phrasal usage (especially in figurative senses like 'pressure' or 'burden') is somewhat idiomatic and requires familiarity with the verb+particle pattern, so the mapping is not fully predictable.

Etymology

Bear down comes from the literal act of pushing in childbirth. A woman tightens her belly and uses her weight to bear the baby down toward the exit, so the phrase means 'to push' during labor.