[f. SWAGGER v. + -ING2.] That swaggers.
1. Having a blustering or insolent air of superiority; characteristic of a swaggerer.
1596. Nashe, Saffron-Walden, Wks. (Grosart), III. 145. They were two well bumbasted swaggering fat bellies.
1597. Shaks., 2 Hen. IV., II. iv. 76. Hang him, swaggering Rascall, let him not come hither.
1600. Breton, Pasquil’s Fooles Cap, lxxxiv. Hee that puts fifteene elles into a Ruffe And seauenteene yards into a swagg’ring slappe.
1612. Beaum. & Fl., Cupid’s Revenge, II. i. He … looks the swaggeringst, and has such glorious cloaths.
1670. Eachard, Cont. Clergy, 38. The high tossing and swaggering preaching; either mountingly eloquent or profoundly learned.
1727. Swift, To Yng. Lady, Wks. 1841, II. 303/1. A tribe of bold, swaggering, rattling ladies.
1790. Burke, Fr. Rev., Wks. V. 426. They made a sort of swaggering declaration, something, I rather think, above legislative competence.
1826. Cobbett, Rur. Rides (1885), II. 105. Great swaggering inns.
1828. Lytton, Pelham, III. xx. Thornton entered with his usual easy and swaggering air of effrontery.
1838. Dickens, Nich. Nick., xxxii. The individual whom he presumed to have been the speaker was coarse and swaggering.
1875. Jowett, Plato (ed. 2), I. 171. Our questioner will rejoin with a laugh, if he be one of the swaggering sort, That is too ridiculous [etc.].
2. Lurching, swaying.
1865. Alex. Smith, Summer in Skye, I. 301.
| I see the sheaves; while, girt by reaper trains, | |
| And blurr’d by breaths of horses, through a yellow | |
| September moonlight, roll the swaggering wanes. |
Hence Swaggeringly adv., in a swaggering manner, with a swagger.
1611. Cotgr., Guinguois, de guinguois, huffingly, swaggeringly, aswash.
1685. Bunyan, Pharisee & Publican, 111. The poor Pharisee … when so swaggeringly he, with his God I thank thee, came into the Temple to pray.
1855. Chamb. Jrnl., III. 413. He … swaggeringly announced that one Gabriel Derjarvin was below.
1886. Miss Broughton, Dr. Cupid, xi. ‘I do not care what she says!’ replies Lily swaggeringly.
