hector C2+ Topic:People & Society US /ˈhɛktər/ UK /ˈhɛktə/ See IPA manual Meanings 1 verb to bully or intimidate with bluster; a swaggering bully He would hector the clerks until they did as he wished. Thesaurus Synonyms 1 verb · to bully or intimidate with... bullyintimidatebrowbeatblusterbadgerdomineer ↔ Opposites coaxcajoleencourage Word family Forms hectoring Derived forms hectoringhectored Etymology AI details From the name of Hector, the Trojan hero of Homer's Iliad; via seventeenth-century slang for a swaggering bully or street ruffian, the name passed into a verb. Topics People & Society Word Formation & Derivatives External links Cambridge Dictionary Wiktionary Google Images # hector **Type:** Word **Level:** C2+ **Part of speech:** verb **IPA (US):** /ˈhɛktər/ **IPA (UK):** /ˈhɛktə/ ## Meanings 1. to bully or intimidate with bluster; a swaggering bully ## Examples - He would hector the clerks until they did as he wished. ## Synonyms - bully - intimidate - browbeat - bluster - badger - domineer ## Antonyms - coax - cajole - encourage ## Derived Forms - hectoring - hectored ## Etymology From the name of Hector, the Trojan hero of Homer's Iliad; via seventeenth-century slang for a swaggering bully or street ruffian, the name passed into a verb. ## AI Etymology hector comes from the name of Hector, the Trojan hero of Homer's Iliad; via seventeenth-century slang for a swaggering bully or street ruffian, the name passed into a verb. The history explains the modern form through the named earlier word or formation, without requiring a separate speculative ancestry. In present English, the verb sense is "to bully or intimidate with bluster; a swaggering bully", so the historical development ends in a clearly identifiable modern dictionary use. The same base also remains productive in derivatives such as hectoring and hectored. Its semantic neighborhood includes bully, intimidate, browbeat, and bluster, which helps locate the modern sense without adding a separate etymological claim. ## Topics - People & Society - Word Formation & Derivatives markdown