what does it mean?

[Tedwonny]

Bringing all her charm to bear, the young lady said...

I have not a clue what 'to bear' means here despite my having checked several dictionaries carefully. I really have not the foggiest idea which shade of meaning of 'bear' it corresponds to.

Thanks a lot

[Gillnetter]

Replace "to bear" with "using". If I bring all of my strength to bear to move a log, I am using all of my strength to move that log.

[Chicken Sandwich]

NOT A TEACHER

See definition #14 here.

[charliedeut]

bring something to bear

• 1
  formal to try to persuade someone to do something by using your influence or power bring something to bear on: The company directors brought pressure to bear on him to resign.
  
  Thesaurus entry for this meaning of bear
  
  
  
• 2
  formal to use something to deal with a problem or difficult situation It was in the area of marketing that Alan's business experience was brought to bear.
  
  Thesaurus entry for this meaning of bear
  
  

I think #2 would rather fit in (from Macmillan Dictionary)

[Grumpy]

I wonder if the derivation of the phrase lies in warfare? To bring a weapon to bear on a target is to point the weapon at it. Maybe it was originally expressed as something like "Bring your guns to bearing on that ship" - where a bearing is a direction; normally relative to North. Just a thought....

[Rover_KE]

A better thread title would have been Bringing all her charm to bear.


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Thread titles should include all or part of the word/phrase being discussed. (Avoid phrases like "HELP!", "Urgent!", "translation please", "how do I say this", "I'm new" and similar expressions.)

Rover

[Gillnetter]

I wonder if the derivation of the phrase lies in warfare? To bring a weapon to bear on a target is to point the weapon at it. Maybe it was originally expressed as something like "Bring your guns to bearing on that ship" - where a bearing is a direction; normally relative to North. Just a thought....

I believe that the term is more related to birth. There is a sense of pressure in the term, attention at least.