bear hug
noun phrase

- the action of putting your arms around someone very tightly and quite roughly

(Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary)

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There was a time when political and business leaders greeted one another with a simple handshake, maintaining a proper and formal distance. But times change. After the fall of communist Russia in 1991, the ever-gregarious Boris Yeltsin took over as president of the so-called Commonwealth of Independent States.

Eager to ease the cold war tensions between Russia and the U.S., Yeltsin began meeting with then U.S. President Bill Clinton. In front of international television cameras, Yeltsin wrapped his huge arms around the surprised U.S. president and thus put the global spotlight on the practice of "bear hugging." After all, the bear is a national symbol of Russia.

Bear hugging is meanwhile in fashion. CEOs do it, presidents do it and teenagers across the schoolyards of the world greet each other each day with bear hugs. The difference between a hug and a bear hug is the intensity of the embrace and whether or not the arms are wrapped completely around the other person.

The expression actually stems from the world of professional wrestling, which boasts all manner of so-called "holds" that are employed to immobilise an opponent. There are chokeholds, half-Nelsons, clawholds, leglocks, toeholds and the standard "bear hug," which when properly executed offers no chance of escape.

In the finance world, a bear hug refers to an offer made by one company to buy the shares of another for a much higher per-share price than what that company is worth. It is essentially a hostile takeover attempt that is done in such a way that the board of directors of the company find it impossible to not accept the bid, thus they may feel as if they are trapped in a bear hug with no way out.

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SMUGGLE OWAD into today's conversation

"I was a bit surprised that the boss gave me a BEAR HUG on my birthday."