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SWAGGER
| Pronunciation (US): |  | (GB): | |
Irregular inflected form: swagger
I. (noun)
Sense 1
Meaning:
A proud stiff pompous gait
Synonyms:
Classified under:
Nouns denoting acts or actions
Hypernyms ("swagger" is a kind of...):
gait (a person's manner of walking)
Derivation:
swagger (to walk with a lofty proud gait, often in an attempt to impress others)
Sense 2
Meaning:
An itinerant Australian laborer who carries his personal belongings in a bundle as he travels around in search of work
Synonyms:
Classified under:
Hypernyms ("swagger" is a kind of...):
gipsy; gypsy; itinerant (a laborer who moves from place to place as demanded by employment)
Domain region:
Australia; Commonwealth of Australia (a nation occupying the whole of the Australian continent; Aboriginal tribes are thought to have migrated from southeastern Asia 20,000 years ago; first Europeans were British convicts sent there as a penal colony)
II. (adjective)
Sense 1
Meaning:
(British informal) very chic
Example:
groovy clothes
Synonyms:
groovy; swagger
Classified under:
Similar:
fashionable; stylish (being or in accordance with current social fashions)
Domain region:
Britain; Great Britain; U.K.; UK; United Kingdom; United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (a monarchy in northwestern Europe occupying most of the British Isles; divided into England and Scotland and Wales and Northern Ireland; 'Great Britain' is often used loosely to refer to the United Kingdom)
Domain usage:
colloquialism (a colloquial expression; characteristic of spoken or written communication that seeks to imitate informal speech)
III. (verb)
Verb forms
Present simple: I / you / we / they swagger ... he / she / it swaggers
Past simple: swaggered
Past participle: swaggered
-ing form: swaggering
Sense 1
Meaning:
Act in an arrogant, overly self-assured, or conceited manner
Synonyms:
Classified under:
Verbs of grooming, dressing and bodily care
Hypernyms (to "swagger" is one way to...):
act; behave; do (behave in a certain manner; show a certain behavior; conduct or comport oneself)
Sentence frame:
Somebody ----s
Derivation:
swaggerer (someone who walks in an arrogant manner)
Sense 2
Meaning:
Discourage or frighten with threats or a domineering manner; intimidate
Synonyms:
Classified under:
Verbs of telling, asking, ordering, singing
Hypernyms (to "swagger" is one way to...):
blarney; cajole; coax; inveigle; palaver; sweet-talk; wheedle (influence or urge by gentle urging, caressing, or flattering)
Sentence frames:
Somebody ----s somebody
Somebody ----s somebody into V-ing something
Sense 3
Meaning:
To walk with a lofty proud gait, often in an attempt to impress others
Example:
He struts around like a rooster in a hen house
Synonyms:
cock; prance; ruffle; sashay; strut; swagger; tittup
Classified under:
Verbs of walking, flying, swimming
Hypernyms (to "swagger" is one way to...):
walk (use one's feet to advance; advance by steps)
Sentence frame:
Somebody ----s PP
Sentence example:
The children swagger to the playground
Derivation:
swagger (a proud stiff pompous gait)
swaggerer (someone who walks in an arrogant manner)
Context examples:
Nothing angered and mortified me so much as the queen’s dwarf; who being of the lowest stature that was ever in that country (for I verily think he was not full thirty feet high), became so insolent at seeing a creature so much beneath him, that he would always affect to swagger and look big as he passed by me in the queen’s antechamber, while I was standing on some table talking with the lords or ladies of the court, and he seldom failed of a smart word or two upon my littleness; against which I could only revenge myself by calling him brother, challenging him to wrestle, and such repartees as are usually in the mouths of court pages.
(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)
Across the platform he swaggered, right up to Martin, and into the foreground of Martin's consciousness disappeared.
(Martin Eden, by Jack London)
He carried his head very jauntily in the air, had a swaggering style of walking, and was, above all else, remarkable for his extraordinary height.
(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
A little later a rakish young workman, with a goatee beard and a swagger, lit his clay pipe at the lamp before descending into the street.
(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
Behind them a group of swaggering, half-drunken Yorkshire dalesmen, speaking a dialect which their own southland countrymen could scarce comprehend, their jerkins marked with the pelican, which showed that they had come over in the train of the north-country Stapletons.
(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
Martin watched him and saw the stiff-rim, the square-cut, double-breasted coat and the swaggering shoulders, of the youthful hoodlum who had once been he.
(Martin Eden, by Jack London)
He glanced about him at the well-bred, well-dressed men and women, and breathed into his lungs the atmosphere of culture and refinement, and at the same moment the ghost of his early youth, in stiff- rim and square-cut, with swagger and toughness, stalked across the room.
(Martin Eden, by Jack London)
He saw himself when he had been quite the hoodlum, wearing a "stiff-rim" Stetson hat and a square-cut, double-breasted coat, with a certain swagger to the shoulders and possessing the ideal of being as tough as the police permitted.
(Martin Eden, by Jack London)
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