subs. and verb. (once literary: now colloquial: B. E. and GROSE).—Bluster; bravado; roaring insolence; SIDE (q.v.). As verb = to strut defiantly; to boast; to bluster; to affect or obtrude superiority: see quot. 1898. Also derivatives such as SWAGGERER and SWAGGERING.
1598. FLORIO, A Worlde of Wordes, s.v. Ruffo … Also a ruffling roister or ruffian, a SWAGGRER.
1598. SHAKESPEARE, 2 Henry IV., ii. 4. Your ancient SWAGGERER comes not in my doors. Ibid. (1599), Henry V., iv. 7. 131. A rascal that SWAGGERED with me last night.
1607. DEKKER, Northward Ho, iv. 1. A SWAGGERING fellow, sir, that speaks not like a man of God’s making, swears he must speak with you, and will speak with you.
1612. ROWLANDS, A History of Rogues [RIBTON-TURNER, A History of Vagrants and Vagrancy, 582]. They chose a notable SWAGGERING rogue called Puffing Dicke to reuell ouer them.
c. 1622. HEYWOOD, The Fair Maid of the West, iii. 1 [PEARSON, Works, (1894), ii. 279].
| Can we not live in compasse of the Law, | |
| But must be SWAGGERD out on’t? |
1636. DAVENANT, The Wits, i. 2.
| And SWAGGER in the wool [that] we shall borrow | |
| From our own flocks. |
1678. R. CUDWORTH, The True Intellectual System of the Universe, 61. It was Atheism openly SWAGGERING, under the glorious Appearance of Wisdom and Philosophy.
1699. DRYDEN, Cox and Fox, 443. [He] SWAGGERETH like a lord about his hall.
1725. SWIFT, A New Song on Wood’s Halfpence. The butcher is stout, and he values no SWAGGER. Ibid. (1728), An Account of the Court and Empire of Japan. He would SWAGGER the boldest man into a dread of his power.
1765. GOLDSMITH, Essays, x. The bunters who SWAGGER in the streets of London.
1809. MALKIN, Gil Blas, 136. She could put on as brazen-faced a SWAGGER as the most impudent dog in town.
1835. MARRYAT, Pacha of Many Tales, ‘The Water Carrier.’ It requires but an impudent SWAGGER and you are taken on your own representation.
1844. THACKERAY, Barry Lyndon, xv. As for the SWAGGER … I deny it in toto, being always most modest in my demeanour.
1880. PAYN, A Confidential Agent, xi. The captain [put] … a good deal of SIDE ON, which became a positive SWAGGER as he emerged into the more fashionable street.
1898. E. W. HOWSON and G. T. WARNER, eds. Harrow School, 280. The rules of ‘SWAGGER’ [or SIDE] are most complex … and in them a new boy is apt to find himself entangled. He goes out with his umbrella rolled up … or he carries it by its middle or under his arm, or he walks on the middle terrace after chapel, or he innocently wears his ‘bluer’ open when it is hot, or turns his trousers up when it is wet, and again he is SWAGGERING. Lady visitors sometimes think small boys at Harrow rude…. To stick close to the wall … and shoulder the world into the gutter; it is modesty; to walk in the road is SWAGGER. To loiter at the house-door, or to sing or whistle in the passages, and to wear a hat in the house are also forms of SWAGGER.
1901. W. S. WALKER, In the Blood, 107. He wore a new cricketing belt round his loins, as low down as he could get it to go; the lower down the greater assumption of ‘push’ SWAGGER.
1886. New York Tribune (Semi-Weekly), 2 Nov. His gambling parties were so SWAGGER that rich money-lenders who wanted to extend their social relations did not mind to what extent they … lost money at them.
1897. OUIDA, Massarines, 8. Lord, ma’am, they’ll pocket the marrons glacés at the table d’hôte and take the matches away from their bedrooms; but, then, you see, ma’am, them as are SWAGGER can do them things.
1900. PERCY WHITE, The West End, 43. ‘We are now living in a very different style.’… ‘It looks a great deal more ‘SWAGGER’ certainly.’
