to bear the brunt
13
6.7
- idiom
- Informal
:
sufrir la peor parte
- Anyhow, the British bore the brunt of that first wave of attacks.
- bear the brunt of the burden
- bore the brunt of the war
- officers bear the brunt
Anyhow, the British bore the brunt of that first wave of attacks.
- Anyhow, the British bore the brunt of that first wave of attacks.
- And it's mostly indigenous Hawaiians there who are bearing the brunt of the drug war and the kind of war on crime.
- We turn to our partners in life, you know, they, you know, many occasions bear the brunt of that chaos at home.
- That's one man bearing the brunt that he's the tip of a very, very, very long spear, right?
Examples
-
And women bear the brunt of the housing policy failures.
-
And who should bear the brunt of the adjustment burden to changes in these prices?
Academic text (1999) -
We know you bore the brunt of it.
-
The mayor and town hall in general bore the brunt of this.
Academic text (1998) -
Such legislation will slow the economic recovery for everyone, and Asia will bear the brunt of the pain.
Academic text (2009) -
Church life, the religious leaders, and the faithful also had to regularly bear the brunt of criticism.
Academic text (1990) -
And it is, of course, the poor who bear the brunt of all this environmental degradation.
Academic text (2010) -
The poor people of the poor countries must then bear the brunt of repaying these loans.
Academic text (2001) -
The people who bear the brunt of inadequate family-leave policies are women.
Academic text (1995) -
In times of crisis, it is often the underprivileged who bear the brunt of the economic fallout.
Synonyms
∞
2.0
To feel pain or be ill
876
3.9
To accept something difficult or unpleasant
15
7.0
To have a very hard and painful time in life
2
8.1
To accept unpleasant results and sometimes punishment for something you did
Antonyms
How Bad
- Informal
13
6.7
∞
2.0
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning is directly compositional: 'bear' (to tolerate) combined with 'brunt' (the main force/impact) yields 'endure the main part of something harmful,' so a learner who knows the constituents can derive the idiomatic sense. The definite article 'the' is a function word and does not obscure the literal composition, and similar constructions exist cross-linguistically, supporting transparency.
Etymology
Bear the brunt comes from a simple battlefield image: someone or a shield standing in front and taking the main hit, because the brunt was the strongest blow. So to bear the brunt today means 'to take the worst part' of something bad or to suffer most of the damage.