[f. as prec. + -ING1.]
1. Boisterous blowing of the wind; tempest.
1530. Palsgr., 199/1. Blustryng of wyndes, behovrdis.
1577. trans. Bullinger’s Decades (1592), 414. Then sodeinly came a whirlwind with a wonderfull storme and blustering.
2. fig. Of a person: Raging, storming; violent or turbulent speech; noisy and windy talk; loud swaggering insolence.
a. 1494. Hylton, Scala Perf. (ed. W. de W.), II. xlv. The soule dredeth no more the blustrynge of the fende, than þe stirynge of a mows.
1562. Cooper, Answ. in Def. Truth (1850), 59. Quietly and calmly, without storming or tempestuous blustering either at you or at your doctrine.
1628. Earle, Microcosm., lxiii. 135. His labour is meer blustering and fury.
1631. R. H., Arraignm. Whole Creature, xviii. 326. These tossings, tumblings, blusterings, bickerings … of the unruly passions.
1711. Addison, Spect., No. 40, ¶ 5. Their Swelling and Blustring upon the Stage.
1837. Carlyle, Fr. Rev., I. I. VI. v. 184. That thick murk of Journalism, with its dull blustering.
