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Anonymous Posted 18 years ago
Vocabulary

out-hawk?

Hello. Can anyone tell me what out-hawk means, please? I guessed that it means 'defeat' from the sentences where I saw the word: 'Obama can't out-hawk McCain on Georgia' (from RealClearPolitics); and 'There was an echo of the Tories' determination, before the Iraq war, to out-hawk Mr Blair, a stance they came to regret.' (from Economist)

I'm now studying English-Japanese translation but I couldn't find this word in my dictionaries.

Many thanks,
  

Top answer

Hi, The term 'a hawk' describes someone whose attitude in foreign policy is very aggressive towards other countries. If person A is a hawk and person B tries to take an even more aggressive attitude than person A, person B can be said to be trying to 'out-hawk' person A. The prefix 'out-' can be added to verbs quite often, to give this idea of 'exceeding'.

— Clive

  • Hi, The term 'a hawk' describes someone whose attitude in foreign policy is very aggressive towards other countries.
  • If person A is a hawk and person B tries to take an even more aggressive attitude than person A, person B can be said to be trying to 'out-hawk' person A.
  • The prefix 'out-' can be added to verbs quite often, to give this idea of 'exceeding'.
  • eg The criminal tried to out-run the policeman.
  • In your example, the noun 'hawk' is being used as a verb.
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2 Answers
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Hi,
The term 'a hawk' describes someone whose attitude in foreign policy is very aggressive towards other countries.

If person A is a hawk and person B tries to take an even more aggressive attitude than person A, person B can be said to be trying to 'out-hawk' person A.

The prefix 'out-' can be added to verbs quite often, to give this idea of 'exceeding'.

eg The cr
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Hi Clive,
Thank you very much for your answer! This is very helpful.

Y
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