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Glite Dictionary
🌪️ To approach fast 🎯 To focus effort 🤰 To push hard 🏋️ To press heavily
to bear down

to bear down

5 5.4
Use all your effort and focus on something difficult
  • phrasal verb
translation icon : esforzarse
  • You need to bear down and study for your exams if you want to pass.
  • bear down hard
  • need to bear down
  • try to bear down

So you've got to be willing to bear down and brace for it.

Examples

  • Bear down and give it all you've got.

    What to Expect When You're Expecting (2012)

  • That work continues and in Leicester we instituted a local lockdown in order to bear down on stubborn rates of infection.

  • So you got to bear down, son.

    The Myth of the American Sleepover (2011)

  • Sometimes you simply have to bear down and get it done.

    Fiction book (1992)

  • I hope it is academic and he just has to bear down on class a little more.

    Blog text (17)

  • Another teacher told her to bear down; high school was a new world, more complicated than junior high.

    Fiction book (2000)

  • So you've got to be willing to bear down and brace for it.

    The Drew Barrymore Show

  • Last week the Education Secretary told the House that he understood the cost pressures facing schools and it would work with them to bear down on those costs.

  • The coach urged the team to bear down in the second half of the game.

  • We must bear down on our goals to finish the project on time.

Synonyms

to tackle
vsto bear down
204 3.4

To try to deal with a difficult problem or task

focuses all effort and concentration specifically on that difficult task
to bear down on
vsto bear down
3 5.5

To press hard on something with great force

focuses effort and attention instead of using physical pressure

Antonyms

to give up
∞ 1.2

To stop trying to do something or accept defeat

to distract
513 2.1

To make someone stop paying attention to what they are doing or thinking about

How Hard

to go all out
39 4.1
to bear down
5 5.4
to try
∞ 1.0

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 for 'to focus all your effort' comes from the idea of leaning your full weight on a task. When you bear on something and push down, you put all your strength and attention into it, so it means 'to focus all your effort'.