1
: money or favor given or promised in order to influence the judgment or conduct of a person in a position of trust
police officers accused of taking bribes
2
: something that serves to induce or influence
offered the kid a bribe to finish his homework
bribed; bribing
: to influence the judgment or conduct of (someone) with or as if with offers of money or favor : to induce or influence by or as if by bribery
attempting to bribe a judge
bribing a child with candy
: to practice bribery
Examples of bribe in a Sentence
Noun
I offered the children a bribe for finishing their homework.
that judge refused a huge bribe to dismiss the charges against the wealthy defendant
Verb
She was arrested for attempting to bribe a judge.
They bribed him to keep quiet about the incident.
We bribed the children with candy.
Recent Examples on the Web
H.m.a. Leow, JSTOR Daily, 11 July 2025
By his own admission, the Mexican lawman known as El Diablo — The Devil — supervised a scourge of torture, murder, kidnappings, land grabs and other abuses while amassing a fortune in cartel bribes that bankrolled purchases of homes, cattle and a fleet of buses.
—Los Angeles Times, 7 July 2025
Erica Klarreich, Quanta Magazine, 9 July 2025
Dopamine anchoring is, effectively, all about bribing yourself.
—Meg Walters, Glamour, 28 June 2025
See All Example Sentences for bribe
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Noun
For instance, Sugihara’s self-discovery occurs after his family pays a bribe to switch their citizenship from North Koreans to South Koreans—just so that his parents can visit Hawai‘i.
—H.m.a. Leow, JSTOR Daily, 11 July 2025
By his own admission, the Mexican lawman known as El Diablo — The Devil — supervised a scourge of torture, murder, kidnappings, land grabs and other abuses while amassing a fortune in cartel bribes that bankrolled purchases of homes, cattle and a fleet of buses.
—Los Angeles Times, 7 July 2025
Verb
In 1986, Amos Fiat and Adi Shamir proposed a way to use hash functions to address the audience’s other concern: that the student might have bribed the professor to pick certain boxes.
—Erica Klarreich, Quanta Magazine, 9 July 2025
Dopamine anchoring is, effectively, all about bribing yourself.
—Meg Walters, Glamour, 28 June 2025
See All Example Sentences for bribe
Cite this Entry
“Bribe.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/bribe. Accessed 21 Jul. 2025.
Copy CitationKids Definition
bribe
1 of 2 noun
: something given or promised to a person in order to influence a decision or action dishonestly
bribe
2 of 2 verb
bribed; bribing
: to influence or try to influence by a bribe
briber
noun
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