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Definitions

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

  1. v. To walk or conduct oneself with an insolent or arrogant air; strut.
  2. v. To brag; boast.
  3. v. To browbeat or bully (someone).
  4. n. A swaggering movement or gait.
  5. n. Boastful or conceited expression; braggadocio.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

  1. To strut with a defiant or insolent air, or with an obtrusive affectation of superiority.
  2. To boast or brag noisily; bluster; bully; hector.
  3. To influence by blustering or threats; bully.
  4. n. The act or manner of a swaggerer; an insolent strut; a piece of bluster; boastfulness, bravado, or insolence in manner.
  5. Swell; all the rage.
  6. n. Same as swagman, 2.

Wiktionary

  1. n. A bold, or arrogant strut.
  2. n. A prideful boasting or bragging.
  3. v. To walk with a swaying motion; hence, to walk and act in a pompous, consequential manner.
  4. v. To boast or brag noisily; to be ostentatiously proud or vainglorious; to bluster; to bully.

GNU Webster's 1913

  1. v. To walk with a swaying motion; hence, to walk and act in a pompous, consequential manner.
  2. v. To boast or brag noisily; to be ostentatiously proud or vainglorious; to bluster; to bully.
  3. v. To bully.
  4. n. The act or manner of a swaggerer.
  5. n. A swagman.

WordNet 3.0

  1. v. to walk with a lofty proud gait, often in an attempt to impress others
  2. adj. (British informal) very chic
  3. v. discourage or frighten with threats or a domineering manner; intimidate.
  4. n. a proud stiff pompous gait
  5. v. act in an arrogant, overly self-assured, or conceited manner
  6. n. an itinerant Australian laborer who carries his personal belongings in a bundle as he travels around in search of work

Etymologies

  1. Probably frequentative of swag.

Examples

  • “Brodeur and Luongo brim with confidence, while Fleury has to ask what, exactly, the English word "swagger" means.”

    Tsn.ca Top Stories RSS

  • “The theatricality of Katherine's piety, Anne's glamour and Henry's swagger is all reflected in the gilt-edged wardrobe.”

    The Washington Post: Theater review: Folger Theatre's 'Henry VIII'

  • “Thanks in part to the rapacious greed injected into war-fighting by the liberal use of for-profit armed "security" companies, a brutal, unaccountable and unreliable swagger is increasingly the face of the U.S. in conflict zones around the world.”

    The Huffington Post: Robert Greenwald: Profit-Chasing Guns-for-Hire Are Killing Us in Iraq and Afghanistan

  • “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.”

    Chapter 27

  • “A new call to swagger from the Hollywood left - USATODAY. com”

    A new call to swagger from the Hollywood left

  • “` ` Our team swagger is really high right now, '' Hawks forward Al Horford said.”

    USATODAY.com

  • “When people use the word swagger what they're really alluding to is not that macho kind of self-confident strutting they think comes out of the locker-room before a game, but the three-quarter-length ladies 'coat cut with a loose flare from the shoulders that was particularly fashionable in the 1950s, which was, more or less, the peak of Chuck Bednarik and Sam Huff's careers.”

    Mark Axelrod: Swagger; Or, is This Really What I Want My Football Team to Have?

  • “The way the word swagger has been used, especially the way Old Spice advertises it, it's apparently meant to exhibit some kind of machismo, a confidence thing.”

    Mark Axelrod: Swagger; Or, is This Really What I Want My Football Team to Have?

  • “' If you want to call it swagger, yes we have the confidence that we know we can go out and beat teams, '' said Owens, who broke the game open with second-half TD catches of 25 and 50 yards.”

    USATODAY.com - Football - Dallas vs. N.Y. Giants

  • “The swagger is gone from this White House," said Charles E. Cook Jr., editor of The Cook Political Report, a nonpartisan newsletter, citing a litany of other difficulties afflicting the administration, including high gasoline prices and the failure of Mr. Bush's push to overhaul Social Security.”

    10/04/2005

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‘swagger’ has been looked up 2678 times, loved by 2 people, added to 40 lists, and has a Scrabble score of 12.