[f. SWASH v. + BUCKLER sb.2; hence lit. one who makes a noise by striking his own or his opponent’s shield with his sword.] A swaggering bravo or ruffian; a noisy braggadocio.
1560. Pilkington, Expos. Aggeus, ii. 8–9 (1562), 266. Too be a dronkarde,… a gamner, a swashe-buckeler … he hath not alowed thee one mite.
1593. Nashe, Christ’s T., Wks. 1904, II. 148. No Smithfield ruffianly Swashbuckler will come of with such harshe hell-raking othes as they.
1648. Jenkyn, Blind Guide, i. 14. He speaking … more like a swash-buckler than a Bishop.
a. 1680. Butler, Charact., Hermetic Philos. Make those spiritual Swash-Bucklers deliver up their Weapons, and keep the Peace.
a. 1721. Prior, Dial. Dead, Charles & Clenard, Wks. 1907, II. 218. When ever You have Thought and Conquered with your Ruyters & Swashbucklers.
1809. W. Irving, Knickerb., VI. i. (1861), 184. He had a garrison after his own heart … guzzling, deep-drinking swashbucklers.
1828. Scott, F. M. Perth, iv. Neither did his frank and manly deportment … bear the least resemblance to that of the bravoes or swash-bucklers of the day.
1899. E. Gosse, Life J. Donne, I. 32. He shows himself … a daring … young swash-buckler of poetry.
attrib. 1620. Melton, Astrolog., 13. What a quarrelling Swash-buckler Mars.
1672. Marvell, Reh. Transp., I. 260. Men … do … cut and slash about vestments … rather in a swash-buckler and Hectoring way, than … like … Christians.
1816. Singer, Hist. Cards, 238, note. The swash-buckler manners of the youth of fashion in the reign of Elizabeth.
1896. Gen. H. Porter, in Century Mag., LIII. Nov., 25/1. He [Gen. Grant] was pictured in the popular mind as striding about in the most approved swashbuckler style of melodrama.
Hence (nonce-wds.) Swashbucklerdom, -ism, -bucklery, the conduct of a swashbuckler; also Swashbucklering = SWASHBUCKLING a.
1862. Mrs. Speid, Last Years Ind., 91. A poor desiccated old man, with faded, filmy eyes, who had paraded before the examining officers with a sort of paralytic attempt at *swashbucklerdom and swagger.
1870. Cheshire Observer, 20 Aug., 6/3. [He] has taken himself and his *swash-bucklering into the army, and has joined the Zouaves.
1884. 19th Cent., Dec., 1023. The swash-bucklering and speculative fashion which the Republican supporters … extolled.
1914. G. K. Chesterton, Flying Inn, xvi. 180. The skyline on every side was broken only by objects that encouraged such swashbucklering comedy.
1892. Review of Rev., 14 April, 360/1. Mr. Gladstone has … been so sedulous an opponent of *swashbucklerism.
1889. D. Hannay, Life F. Marryat, 21. He would have condemned … such a piece of frantic *swashbucklery as the last fight of the Revenge.
