Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A show of bravery or defiance, often in order to make a false impression or mislead someone.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun Pretentious boldness or bravery; arrogant or boastful menace; swaggering defiance.
  • noun One who indulges in boastful and arrogant menaces.
  • Arrogantly bold or menacing; said or done in bravado: as, “bravado bets,”

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun Boastful and threatening behavior; a boastful menace.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun A swaggering show of defiance or courage.
  • noun A false show of courage.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun a swaggering show of courage

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[French bravade and Old Spanish bravada, swagger, bravery, both ultimately from Vulgar Latin *brabus, brave; see brave.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

French bravade ("bragging or boasting"). Which comes from Italian bravata, from verb bravare ("brag, boast"), from bravo.

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