swaggering

Pluralswaggerings

1. 1
   adjective

   Proud and boastful, with a bold, showy self-confidence.

   The film's swaggering hero walks into every fight convinced he can't lose.

   Behind his swaggering manner was a man terrified of failing in public.

   Similarboastful, confident, proud, self-confident, swashbuckling

   Oppositemodest, humble, meek

   Note

   The adjective keeps the walk inside it, which is why its opposite is mincing, the small, fussy step, and why swashbuckling stands among its synonyms. Beside plain confident or proud, it adds show: a swaggering manner is confidence put on display, and it can mask the opposite, as with a man terrified of failing in public.

2. 2
   verb

   Present participle and gerund of swagger.

   The sailors were swaggering down the dock with the rolling walk of men long at sea.

   After the win, the coach was swaggering in front of the cameras, bragging that no team could touch them.

   Note

   With a verb of motion the form describes the walk: came swaggering in, went swaggering off, sailors swaggering down the dock with a rolling gait. Without one it leans toward talk, as when a coach is swaggering in front of the cameras, bragging that no team can touch his. Both meanings follow be in the progressive.

3. 3
   nouncountable or uncountable

   Boastful and blustering behavior, full of loud bragging and showing off.

   For all the swaggering on the campaign trail, the candidate lost by a wide margin.

   Her grandfather's swaggerings about his youth grew grander every Thanksgiving.

   Similarbragging, boasting, bluster, posturing

   Oppositemodesty, humility

   Note

   The plural counts separate displays, and it pairs naturally with boastings: The Spirit of the Public Journals is amused by the "ill-digested boastings and swaggerings" of the redoubtable head of the French people. The uncountable singular names the general noise instead, as in all the swaggering on the campaign trail.

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