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Bravado   Listen
noun
Bravado  n.  (pl. bravadoes)  Boastful and threatening behavior; a boastful menace. "In spite of our host's bravado."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Bravado" Quotes from Famous Books



... was given slowly, without any bravado, but whatever energy of life there was in the speaker ...
— Marriage a la mode • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... really is. Look—see that man coming? It's Straforel, the bravado whom I wrote to a few minutes ago. He is to superintend ...
— The Romancers - A Comedy in Three Acts • Edmond Rostand

... had gone Maggie realised that she had been talking with bravado—in fact she hid her head in the cushion of the chair and cried for at least five minutes. Then she sat up and wiped her eyes because she heard Aunt Anne coming. When Aunt Anne came towards her now she was affected with a strange feeling of sickness. She told herself ...
— The Captives • Hugh Walpole

... mother to feed the beautiful creatures with bread and buns, and to feel the suffusion of pleasure derived from the contact of their soft lips with the palm of the hand. After that they were scarcely astonished when, without bravado, but clearly with simple confidence and enjoyment, Julius put his hand within the bars of the lion's cage and scratched the ears of a lioness, murmuring the while in a strange tongue such fond sounds as only those use who are on the ...
— Master of His Fate • J. Mclaren Cobban

... her distaste? Such were the terms offered; Alexander Quisante lay long hours open-eyed and thought of them. There had come into his head an idea that attracted him mightily and suited well with his nature, so oddly mixed of strength and weakness, greatness and smallness, courage and bravado, the idea of a means by which he might keep the world's applause and his wife's fascinated interest, aye, and increase them too, till they should be more intense than they had ever been. That would be a triumph, played before admiring ...
— Quisante • Anthony Hope

... every waist dangled a revolver. I remarked that not a few of the women displayed little weapons as in bravado. ...
— Desert Dust • Edwin L. Sabin

... squeak of my match sounded as loud as the scraping of a brake, and I almost fancied I heard it fall when I tossed it onto the grass. But there was more than that: a sense of irrelevance, of littleness, of childish bravado, in sitting there puffing my cigarette-smoke into the face ...
— The Early Short Fiction of Edith Wharton, Part 1 (of 10) • Edith Wharton

... to Holy Moscow, and regard the building of Petersburg as a piece of godlessness or malice. The workmen die, like flies, of marsh fever, and they regard your Majesty's building in the midst of a marsh as an act of bravado a la Louis Quatorze, who built Versailles on ...
— Historical Miniatures • August Strindberg

... slim-built boy perhaps fifteen years old, a half-smoked cigarette hanging from one corner of his mouth, leaned in over the high footway. His pasty yellow complexion did not show well on a person of his years, and his look was a mixture of irresolution, bravado, and very cheap smartness. He was dressed in a cherry-coloured blazer, knickerbockers, red stockings, and bicycle shoes, with a red flannel cap at the back of the head. After whistling between his teeth, as he eyed the company, he said ...
— "Captains Courageous" • Rudyard Kipling

... the earlier volumes of American history, were not barbarities in the estimation of those who practised them. The scalp lock was an emblem of chivalry. Every warrior shaving his head for battle was careful to leave the lock of defiance upon his crown, as for the bravado, 'Take it if you can.' The stake and the torture were identified with their rude notions of the power of endurance. They were inflicted upon captives of their own race, as well as upon whites; and with their own braves these trials were ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 2 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Edgerton Ryerson

... steadiness under risks rationally taken, and perseverance so long as there is a chance of success, courage is a true virtue; but it ceases to be one when the love of danger, a useful passion when danger is unavoidable, begins to lead men into evils which it was unnecessary to face. Bravado, provocativeness, and a gambler's instinct, with a love of hitting hard for the sake of exercise, is a temper which ought already to be counted among the vices rather than the virtues of man. To delight in war is a merit ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana

... sweet, and did I not know how she had yearned for them? Her age: it is only the very happily married woman who snaps her fingers at the approach of forty, and even she does so with a disquieting sense of bravado. And the sweet insolence of youth says: "I am eighteen: ...
— The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne • William J. Locke

... once Antonio Bernal had told the truth. Lying helpless, almost motionless, on the narrow bed in the shepherd's home, he greeted his visitor with a pitiful smile on his white face, and a tone from which the last vestige of his old bravado had departed: "The Captain! si. You did well to come, my Lady Jess. But ...
— Jessica, the Heiress • Evelyn Raymond

... been bravado with him up to the time that he knew this girl was coming out. After that, curiosity and a sense of fair play, mingled, had ensued. Then a new feeling had come after he had met the girl herself—pity, and remorse in regard to ...
— The Sagebrusher - A Story of the West • Emerson Hough

... is impossible, Matamore settles his hat firmly on his head, twists the long ends of his mustache, puts his hand on the hilt of his big sword, and advances threateningly towards Leander—but it is pure bravado, for his teeth are chattering with fear, and his long, thin legs waver and tremble under him visibly, like reeds shaken by the wind. Only one hope remains to him—that of intimidating Leander by loud threats and ferocious gestures, if, by a happy chance, he be a fellow ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier

... prevalence of homosexuality. The chief effect seems to be that the attempt at suppression arouses the finer minds among sexual inverts to undertake the enthusiastic defense of homosexuality, while coarser minds are stimulated to cynical bravado.[273] ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 2 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis

... Paul had endeavored to assume an air of bravado, but as soon as he was left alone he was seized with such mortal terror, that he sank in a half fainting condition into an easy-chair. He felt that he was not going to put on a disguise for a brief period, but for life, and that ...
— Caught In The Net • Emile Gaboriau

... fact, in the end, get to the walls of Rome, he did nothing but threaten when he was there, and his encampment near the city can only be considered as a bravado. His presence seems to have excited very little apprehension within the city. The Romans had, in fact, before this time, lost their terror of the Carthaginian arms. To show their contempt of Hannibal, they sold, at public auction the land on which he was encamped, while he was upon it ...
— Hannibal - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott

... of civilised man. No one runs so hurriedly to the cover of respectability as the unconventional woman who has exposed herself to the slings and arrows of outraged propriety. I do not believe the people who tell me they do not care a row of pins for the opinion of their fellows. It is the bravado of ignorance. They mean only that they do not fear reproaches for peccadillos which they are convinced ...
— The Moon and Sixpence • W. Somerset Maugham

... effort of formal Catholicism, and there are few more striking emblems of later Rome—the Rome foredoomed to see Victor Emmanuel in the Quirinal, the Rome of abortive councils and unheeded anathemas. It rises there, gorgeous and useless, on its miasmatic site, with an air of conscious bravado—a florid advertisement of the superabundance of faith. Within it's magnificent, and its magnificence has no shabby spots—a rare thing in Rome. Marble and mosaic, alabaster and malachite, lapis and porphyry, incrust it from pavement to cornice and flash back their polished ...
— Italian Hours • Henry James

... as he said it. There was an air of bravado about his manner. I could not help feeling that perhaps in his heart he was not so sure of himself as he ...
— The Gold of the Gods • Arthur B. Reeve

... head, and in a tone of bravado and offended dignity, "you think I can't get home alone, do you? I'll show you that Miguel Torreno is still as young as the rest of you!" And supporting himself with one hand on the table and the other on his stick, he rose from ...
— When Dreams Come True • Ritter Brown

... every ten having been peppered with shell fire. The British had some big guns there. One half of my battalion was to go into trenches one night, and the other half went the next night. I warned the officers against any foolishness or bravado. I could hear the rattle of rifle and machine-gun fire and I tried to sleep. The billets we occupied were the finest we had lived in so far. I had a good coal fire in my room. Some devilish battery commander ...
— The Red Watch - With the First Canadian Division in Flanders • J. A. Currie

... deliberated what I should do if we were surprised. At the sound of a footfall or the soft creak of a plank I felt that I might lose all control and leap up and brain him with the heavy bottle in my grasp. I had an insane desire to spring at his throat and throttle his infamous bravado, tumble him overboard and annihilate the ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1920 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various

... clenching and unclenching as she stared at the man, who seemed a part of the horse he was sitting so closely. Would it never end? She did not care now which killed the other so that it would only stop. The man's endurance seemed mere bravado. She clutched Gaston's arms with a hand that was wringing wet. "It is horrible," she gasped with ...
— The Sheik - A Novel • E. M. Hull

... can be sure of," he said. "I've been full of bravado with Paula, telling her how soon I was going to be back in harness again; cock-sure and domineering as ever, so that she'd better make hay while the sun shone. But it was I, nevertheless, who made her go ...
— Mary Wollaston • Henry Kitchell Webster

... one hundred and fifty men, went up to Powhatan's chief seat, taking his daughter with them, offering the Indians a chance to fight for her or to take her in peace on surrender of the stolen goods. The Indians received this with bravado and flights of arrows, reminding them of the fate of Captain Ratcliffe. The whites landed, killed some Indians, burnt forty houses, pillaged the village, and went on up the river and came to anchor in front of ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... In spite of his bravado, Buck was deeply anxious. He watched Haines narrowly. Only two men in the mountain-desert would have had a chance against this man in a fight, and Buck knew perfectly well that he was not one of ...
— The Untamed • Max Brand

... distresses. The first two pages had been begun two months ago, and were in answer to a letter of mine inquiring about the truth of his losses, etc. Of these he spoke with cheerful fortitude, but with no bravado. He said that his losses had been great, but that he had enough left to live on; that he had had many gratifying offers of assistance, but that what he had done foolishly he would bear manfully; that he would take it all upon his ...
— The Life and Letters of Maria Edgeworth, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth

... of adventure, recklessness, bravado—whatever you may choose to call it—flared high in the soul of this self-despised outsider. He could feel a strange thrill of exaltation shooting through his veins; he knew as well as he knew anything that he was destined to ...
— Truxton King - A Story of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon

... josser, a friend of the manager's or an agent, prowling around among the flesh-colored tights. Lily had seen all this a hundred times, a thousand times before, when she was with her parents; and the mere thought of Ma made her talk nicely, from bravado, to all of them, though she was married now. Lily bore Pa no malice, in spite of the buckled belt. Pa was a man, with hair on his chest and harsh like all of them ... no, not all ... and not so bad, perhaps ... not always ... no; however, a man.... But her Ma, a lady, ought to have ...
— The Bill-Toppers • Andre Castaigne

... agitations upon such encounters did not last long. They blew off in a few thundering claps of bravado and defiance in the second parlour of the Phoenix, where he washed his hands and readjusted his wig and ruffles, and strutted forth, squaring his elbows, and nodding and winking at the sympathising waiters in the inn hall; and with ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu

... in passing the Standard Theater, near the corner of Thirty-Third Street Morris saw and instantly recognized the tall, rustic figure and slouching walk of Joshua Bascom. He paused a moment in indecision, then summoning up all his native bravado, he stepped forward, and laid his hand on ...
— The Erie Train Boy • Horatio Alger

... conscience in the culmination wanting in the conception of an act. As the partial realization of the situation swept over her, she gave a gasp, and then, the vehicle having meanwhile vanished, a desperate spirit of bravado replaced her momentary apprehension. She even laughed nervously as she waved her handkerchief in the direction the coach had taken: ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham

... two, perhaps. Had the storm continued during the night they would have been dashed upon the coast. God-fearing men would have given thanks for their miraculous rescue; but not so these. Instead, the fear of death removed, they assumed their former bravado. ...
— The Mucker • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... he descended the steps with a dogged look, shaking his head with an air of bravado and obstinate determination. They walked a few paces, and paused. The woman put her hand upon his shoulder in an agony of entreaty, and the boy sullenly raised his head as if in refusal. It was a brilliant morning, and every object looked fresh and happy ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens

... be in possession of the only document that gives any explanation of my extraordinary behaviour . . . When you have read the letter, you will see the psychological explanation of a course of conduct that from the outside seems a combination of absolute idiotcy with vulgar bravado. Some day the truth will have to be known—not necessarily in my lifetime . . . but I am not prepared to sit in the grotesque pillory they put me into, for all time; for the simple reason that I inherited from my father and ...
— Selected Prose of Oscar Wilde - with a Preface by Robert Ross • Oscar Wilde

... further practice for the day when he should make a still more ambitious flight and dine at Randolph's new table. He sat in a dark corner of the room and tried to get, as best he might, the essential hang of the situation: the soft, insidious insistence of Amy; the momentum and bravado of his sister-in-law; the veiled disparagement of Cope in which George F. Pearson, seated on a sofa between Carolyn and Hortense, indulged for their benefit, or for his own relief; above all, he listened for tones and undertones from Cope himself. He had never ...
— Bertram Cope's Year • Henry Blake Fuller

... that what I try to do I accomplish," she retorted with an air of bravado. She leaned her elbows on a little table, looking across at Giovanni, her lips parted, her eyes dancing. "Do you wish to hear? Very well. I have a friend who gives the American heiress lessons in Italian. She says it is easy—one has only to talk Italian and make her talk, and ...
— The Title Market • Emily Post

... shadow across our conversation, but we looked at it with precision and it moved away. That is one of poppa's most comforting characteristics, he would as soon open his bosom to a shot-gun as to a confidence. He asked for details through the telephone merely for bravado. As a matter of fact, if I had begun to send them he would have rung off the connection and said it was an accident. We dipped into politics, and I told the Senator that while I considered his speech on the Silver Compromise a credit to the family on the whole, I thought he had let himself out somewhat ...
— A Voyage of Consolation - (being in the nature of a sequel to the experiences of 'An - American girl in London') • Sara Jeannette Duncan

... the little airy melodious way she had when she was telling something particularly unhappy about herself—a sort of harpsichord bravado—"Well, you know, he's taken to fancying himself seriously ill lately, and the doctors have aided and abetted him; and so we're going to Davos Platz, or some such ...
— Young Lives • Richard Le Gallienne

... relatives to see him die. The memory of his dying had remained with her to comfort her for the fact of it. She had seen him, calm, and in her eyes very beautiful, standing in strong relief with his back to a white wall, a cigarette between his lips. There had not been the slightest bravado in his perfect self-possession. It had been that of a gentleman, which he was not by birth, and a man of the world; quiet, retiring and attentive. He had looked so courteous, so kind-hearted, so pure! He had spoken—on either side of his cigarette—for some moments to the priest, apologizing ...
— The Spread Eagle and Other Stories • Gouverneur Morris

... profession, and labour therein with something not far short of enthusiasm, a cry from the opposite party who are content when they have enough, and like to look on and enjoy in the meanwhile, savours a little of bravado and gasconade. And yet this should not be. Idleness so called, which does not consist in doing nothing, but in doing a great deal not recognised in the dogmatic formularies of the ruling class, has as good a right to state its position as industry itself. It is admitted that the presence of ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... could reach, rose here and there thin columns of smoke. Suddenly, as I stared, three or four white smoke puffs, like giant flowers, started out of the shadowy woods across the neck. Following the crack of the muskets—fired out of pure bravado by the Indians—came the yelling of the savages. The sound was prolonged and deep, as ...
— The Literary World Seventh Reader • Various

... thoroughbreds and saddlers, but for obvious reasons that had been impossible. But he went his jaunty way, waxing his moustaches, squandering his money on fancy neckties, taking his surreptitious nip with all the gay bravado of thirty years before, and getting seedier and seedier. He was a dandelion withering on the stalk. He had long since given up hope of being anything else but bookkeeper in the "Golden Rule," and indeed it was only ...
— Stubble • George Looms

... in which she had given her own share in the action she gave Diane's. Shading her eyes with the hand-screen, she was able to watch his play of feature, and note how the first forced smile of bravado faded into an ...
— The Inner Shrine • Basil King

... trust herself to look up at all. Then the parting! The chief, your father, stood up and addressed his people—for "his people" he still would call them. There was not a tremor in his voice, nor was there, on the other hand, even a spice of bravado. He spoke to them calmly, logically. In the old days, he said, might had been right, and many a gallant corps of heroes had his forefathers led from the glen, but times had changed. They were governed by good laws, and good laws meant fair play, for they protected ...
— Our Home in the Silver West - A Story of Struggle and Adventure • Gordon Stables

... ask me to give you my protection. The protection of a reefer is, in itself, something laughable; and then, as an inducement, you confess to me that you are a villain, only in guilt just short of murder. Perhaps, by this bravado sort of confession, you have endeavoured to give me a worse impression of your character than it really deserves, that you might give me the better opinion of your sincerity. Is ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard

... flag hoisted at the brig's peak? What was that shot fired for? Pure bravado doubtless, unless it was a sign of the act of taking possession. Harding knew now that the vessel was well armed. And what had the colonists of Lincoln Island to reply to the pirates' guns? A ...
— The Mysterious Island • Jules Verne

... strode from the path, or lane, of virtue, toward a cherry-tree, whose red fruit hung temptingly low, and his example was followed by every one of the Brigade, leaving the terrified Hicks to wait in the lane, where, because of his alarm, he had no time to wonder at the bravado of his behemoth comrades. However, finding that Bildad had disappeared, and believing he had taken Caesar Napoleon into the house, the sunny Hicks, who was far from a coward otherwise, but who had an unreasonable dread of dogs, little or big, was about to wax courageous, and join his team-mates, ...
— T. Haviland Hicks Senior • J. Raymond Elderdice

... us the reason for overwhelming fear as being a deficiency in faith. And He casts all into the form of a question, thus softening rebuke, and calming their terrors by the appeal to their common sense. Fear is irrational if we can exercise faith. It is mere bravado to say 'I will not be afraid,' for this awful universe is full of occasions for just terror; but it is the voice of sober reason which says 'I will trust, and not be afraid.' Christ answers His own question in the act of putting it,—ye are ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren

... and a burning heart pierced through with an arrow! Jussu regis. It is I, James the Second. A man commits a bad action, and places his mark upon it. To fill up the measure of crime by effrontery, to denounce himself, to cling to his misdeeds, is the insolent bravado of the criminal. Christina seized Monaldeschi, had him confessed ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo

... head. He was a thought dashed by Evander's discovery of the blemish in the stone, and he carried off his discomfiture by bravado. ...
— The Lady of Loyalty House - A Novel • Justin Huntly McCarthy

... beyond the Forza hills, was the red foreglow spreading over the grey. It was dawn, and with the dawn came safety. The fires had burned low, and the vagrant morning winds were beginning to scatter the white ashes. Now was the hour for bravado, since the time for silence had gone. St. John gave the word, and it was passed like a roll-call to left and right, the farthest man shouting it along the ribs of mountain to the next watch-fire. The air had grown clear and thin, and far off the dim repetition was heard, ...
— The Half-Hearted • John Buchan

... here? (SMITH and MOORE, confounded by the officer's presence, slouch together to right of door. HUNT, stopping as he goes out, contemplates the pair, sarcastically. This is supported by MOORE with sullen bravado; ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume XV • Robert Louis Stevenson

... own men, or friendly Aberginians, had been able to take a bloody revenge for the attempt on his life. But no satisfactory reason occurred to him why the body of Pieskaret should have been fastened to the raft. It seemed a wanton act of bravado, which he could not reconcile with the known qualities of Sassacus. Concealment and not exposure, he thought, should have been the policy, but on the contrary, the very course had been adopted most likely to lead to discovery. Why again, he thought, is the chief of a distant ...
— The Knight of the Golden Melice - A Historical Romance • John Turvill Adams

... unpleasant incident must have occurred, we did not press her for the story of it. Then, you came, and without mincing your words you told the whole brutal truth; and you uttered it with a spirit of brutality and bravado that would be unbelievable under any other circumstances. And when, in your own self-abasement for what you had done, you confessed to the acts of which you were guilty toward Miss Langdon, you received, at Duncan's hands, the blow you so ...
— The Last Woman • Ross Beeckman

... Or condigne gratulation And just vexation Of the Spanish nation, That in bravado Spent many a crusado In setting forth an ...
— English Literature, Considered as an Interpreter of English History - Designed as a Manual of Instruction • Henry Coppee

... Gregory Goodloe—my daughter Charlotte," father announced, as he rose and waved in my direction a hand that was cordial to the point of bravado. ...
— The Heart's Kingdom • Maria Thompson Daviess

... Bravado? Or deadly purpose? How could she tell? Her heart misgave her; she crushed herself away from him as from some ...
— The Brass Bowl • Louis Joseph Vance

... initiative, and chosen the arbitrament of war. She has done it because her position was desperate, and because she hoped thereby to unite the Cotton States by a complicity in blood, as they are already committed by a unanimity in bravado. Major Anderson deserves more than ever the thanks of his country for his wise forbearance. The foxes in Charleston, who have already lost their tails in the trap of Secession, wished to throw upon him the responsibility of that second blow which ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 40, February, 1861 • Various

... the Scheldt. In seven days he promised to return, and meanwhile he gave Cicero strict directions to keep the legion within the lines, and not to allow any of the men to stray. It happened that after Caesar recrossed the Rhine two thousand German horse had followed in bravado, and were then plundering between Tongres and the river. Hearing that there was a rich booty in the camp, that Caesar was away, and only a small party had been left to guard it, they decided to try to take the place by a sudden stroke. Cicero, seeing ...
— Caesar: A Sketch • James Anthony Froude

... and struggled a few moments; then hung as lifeless until his body was taken down. He was of medium stature, slight figure and light in weight. Hetherington's body swayed, but there was no perceptible motion of his limbs. He met death with placid firmness, without bravado. Henry H. Haight, his attorney for years, stated that he was one of the most upright and honorable men in his dealings and general conduct that he had ever known. These were the last that suffered death by ...
— The Vigilance Committee of '56 • James O'Meara

... people who lived in this community at that time. Benjamin Snow, a smart Colored man, keeping a restaurant on the corner of Pennsylvania Avenue and Sixth Street, was reported to have made some remark of a bravado kind derogatory to the wives of white mechanics; whereupon this class, or those assuming to represent them, made a descent upon his establishment, destroying all his effects. Snow himself, who denied using the offensive language, with difficulty escaped ...
— History of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1880. Vol. 2 (of 2) - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George Washington Williams

... laugh that was dry and jarred upon the air almost like a shriek, 'since before your forefathers were born!' It seemed to me that he spoke like one who, out of bitterness and despite, made every darkness blacker still. A kind of madman in his way; for what was this claim of age?—a piece of bravado, no doubt, like ...
— The Little Pilgrim: Further Experiences. - Stories of the Seen and the Unseen. • Margaret O. (Wilson) Oliphant

... are, and all fill up a page or two with complaints, ad nauseam—for that reason sick you shall not be. Observe—to your astonishment you are not sea-sick: the other passengers suffer dreadfully; one young dandy puffs furiously at a cigar in bravado, until he sends it over the side, like an arrow from the blow-pipe of a South American Indian. Introduce a husband with a pretty wife—he jealous as a dog, until he is sick as a cat—your attentions— she pillowed on your arms, while he hangs over the lee gunwale—her gratitude—safe arrival ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)

... slavery was a dim recollection of childhood found the world a puzzling thing: it asked little of them, and they answered with little, and yet it ridiculed their offering. Such a paradox they could not understand, and therefore sank into listless indifference, or shiftlessness, or reckless bravado. There were, however, some—such as Josie, Jim and Ben—to whom War, Hell, and Slavery were but childhood tales, whose young appetites had been whetted to an edge by school and story and half-awakened thought. ...
— The Upward Path - A Reader For Colored Children • Various

... resistance while being led towards the mud wall of the corral. There was neither bravado nor fear in his bearing. Evidently he had made up his mind to die like a Christian, and had given up all hope of deliverance from the foes by whom he was surrounded. But friends were near whom ...
— The Rover of the Andes - A Tale of Adventure on South America • R.M. Ballantyne

... "notices to quit," and was able to extract their import from any verbiage whatever, so he drank by and to himself, and immediately sauntered out of town, with an air of bravado in his carriage, and a very lonesome ...
— Romance of California Life • John Habberton

... into the dazzling sunshine and looked up at the ridges that rose tier by tier above her, but she had no fear either of white men or Indians, for she had done nothing to make them her enemies. Whoever they were, she knew she was safe—but Wunpost was hiding in a cave. All his bravado gone, he was afraid to venture out even to wet his parched throat ...
— Wunpost • Dane Coolidge

... breakfast, while the other eyed him closely. And, as he worked, he kept up his air of bravado—but it was an air he was far from feeling. He knew Black Moran by reputation, and he knew that unless a miracle happened his own life was not a worth a gun-wad. All during the meal which they ate with Black Moran's ...
— Connie Morgan in the Fur Country • James B. Hendryx

... manner, self-confident to the point of bravado, had baffled me. I began to feel that even if he had lost the detectaphone record, his was the nature to carry out the bluff of still having it, in much the same manner that he would have played the market on a shoestring or made the most of an unfilled four-card ...
— The Ear in the Wall • Arthur B. Reeve

... rendered me so many kind services already that I am sure I might count upon him again, but this is a thing I should like to do for myself. I would not have my thanks chilled by even the passage from my heart to his." There was something like bravado in the glance that rested lightly on Bradley with this. One would have said that parley of hearts between them was not a thing that as a rule she courted. "I can only offer you my thanks, poor things ...
— The Path of a Star • Mrs. Everard Cotes (AKA Sara Jeannette Duncan)

... Out of sheer bravado Sam set to work again to bind his logs together. His hand shook. There was little likelihood now that he would ...
— The Huntress • Hulbert Footner

... the little man with sullen bravado. "I ain't got a thing against you, but Rawson goes ...
— The Vision Spendid • William MacLeod Raine

... were already outside the fence, seated on the ground, chatting and taking snuff. I wondered if this was because they really believed in Mavovo's confounded Snake, or from bravado, inspired by the innate courage of their race. When they saw me they sprang to their feet and, lifting their right hands, gave me a loud and hearty salute of "Inkoosi! Baba! Inkoosi! Macumazana!" Then, at a signal from Mavovo, ...
— Allan and the Holy Flower • H. Rider Haggard

... and in the set of her head. This new light in the eye and this new bearing were born of the authority and leadership which had this day been vested in her by the decree of God, and they asserted that authority as plainly as speech could have done it, yet without ostentation or bravado. This calm consciousness of command, and calm unconscious outward expression of it, remained with her thenceforth ...
— Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc - Volume 1 (of 2) • Mark Twain

... vacated chair and leaned back with his hands in his trousers pockets. He had the air of a man fortified by a certain amount of bravado,—stimulated by some ...
— The Profiteers • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... general," said the foremost, a tall, distinguished-looking man, lifting his hand with a graceful deprecating air. "In fact, too sorry to bother you with an affair of no importance except to ourselves. A bit of after-dinner bravado brought us in contact with your pickets, and, of course, we had to take the consequences. Served us right, and we were lucky not to have got a bullet through us. Gad! I'm afraid my men would have been less ...
— Clarence • Bret Harte

... the Indians had been afraid to come. They called it 'The Devil's Valley,' and though the young bucks might come in and spend a night, just as a bit of bravado, they were frightened of it; but after I came they took ...
— Purple Springs • Nellie L. McClung

... that's what you mean," Billy answered with a meaningful glance over his shoulder, and then with a fine attempt at bravado: "I'm Friar Tuck, and that chap smoking ...
— The Madness of May • Meredith Nicholson

... slight embarrassment in mamma's manner when he entered, mingled with the same quantity of bravado. He nodded to her, tapped me on the head with his riding-whip, gave Patsey a kiss as she stretched out her arms to him, tossed her in the air, and, returning her to ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume II. (of X.) • Various

... note of bravado, and his attitude betrayed the self-conscious actor, but there was that in his countenance which could only have come of real misery. The thin cheeks, heavy-lidded and bloodshot eyes, ill-coloured lips, made a picture anything but agreeable to look upon; and quite in keeping with ...
— Will Warburton • George Gissing

... so full of anxiety!" continued Coronado. "Not about our dangers," he asserted with a little bravado. "Or, rather, not about mine. For you I have been fearful. The possibility that you might fall into the hands of the Apaches was a horror to me. But, after all, my chief anxiety was to know what would be your final answer to me. Yes, my beautiful and very dear ...
— Overland • John William De Forest

... left this boy very little, I fancy, but an untarnished name. Of the son I know really nothing. I have never seen him before. He is not unlike his father in appearance, and is even more fastidious in his dress. That may be from bravado, of course. What he says about gentlemen not having a fair chance in this country has a certain amount of truth ...
— A Romantic Young Lady • Robert Grant

... The centre figure of the High Sheriff, with his tattered and faded finery of office, is equally clever; but the skill with which the artist has contrived to express his forced mirth, and mopstick bravado, is still more forcible. The troubled countenance of the Lord Mayor is an excellent portrait of the indignation of little authority when perturbed by men of greater place. The faces of the turnkey and the sergeant are likewise admirable; and that of the soldier looking towards the latter for orders, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 12, No. 336 Saturday, October 18, 1828 • Various

... something eased up in his mind. He seemed to be let off, in this spring twilight, from an exigent task that had shown no signs of easing. Yet he knew he was not really let off. Only the girls were throwing their glamour of youth and hope and bravado over the apprehensive landscape of his fortune as to-morrow's sun would snatch a rosier light ...
— The Prisoner • Alice Brown

... hysterical and go all to pieces? Would the prospect of a week of propinquity be too much for her, even though thick walls intervened to put them into separate worlds? Or, worst of all, would she reveal an uncomfortable spirit of bravado, rashly casting discretion to the winds in order to show him that she was not the timid, beaten coward he might suspect her of being? She had once said to me that she loathed a coward. I have always wondered how it felt to be in a "pretty kettle of fish," or a "pickle," or any ...
— A Fool and His Money • George Barr McCutcheon

... pulling straight for the mountains where the dreaded creature lived. He smoked his pipe nonchalantly, as though a hundred professors could not daunt him. I was sure that there was something of bravado in his conduct until he began to sing, and his voice rang out without a tremor, so full and strong that it fanned a spark of courage into my cowering heart. James had a wonderfully inspiring way of singing. ...
— David Malcolm • Nelson Lloyd

... 'That's all bravado of his. He imagines that he is differently made from other men, just because he is a priest. Well, as a matter of fact, he is very firm and determined. I have known some who wouldn't have had to be wheedled so long. And he is ...
— Abbe Mouret's Transgression - La Faute De L'abbe Mouret • Emile Zola

... I, with the best bravado I could muster, though the truth is I was sick at heart. I had forced a quarrel like an ill-mannered boy on the very man whose help I had come to seek. And I saw, too, that I had gone just that bit too far for which no recantation would ...
— Salute to Adventurers • John Buchan

... on a fair day at noon. Most of the shops, especially those that dealt in provisions, were open and full of vociferous customers, while every alehouse was a pandemonium. The street was choked with townspeople and soldiery; lanterns flickered and torches flamed; oath and jest, bravado and ...
— The Yeoman Adventurer • George W. Gough

... stoutest cheek is blanched. The sturdiest frame, shaken by the blows of the sledge, then betrays emotion, and tears of penitence are at that moment almost always seen to fall. On sitting down, each had in general an air of bravado, produced in a great measure by the regards of the seemingly more hardened ruffians from the windows. Under the riveting there was no smile; whilst after it, apathy was affected or resumed, each endeavouring to ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19, Issue 546, May 12, 1832 • Various

... Neither did she come on Tuesday, and that night was to be the fatal end of all things. A great many people went to church that day. The children did suffer from dread, though Lottie Brower kept up a sort of cheery bravado, as one whistles or ...
— A Little Girl in Old New York • Amanda Millie Douglas

... passed through the double influence exercised by Pagan classical literature and German philosophies, and was in a transition state, he wrote "Childe Harold;" but the skeptical tendencies to be found in one stanza appear like a bravado, the result of spleen, a feeling that made him suffer, and which he speedily threw aside. For he wrote, at the same time, the stanza upon the death of a friend, whom he hopes to see again in the land of souls, and afterward, ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli

... down in front of the station when John came up. The expression on his face was far from pleasant, and the boy began to regret his fit of bravado. But shucks, that tough wouldn't dare do anything. He stopped at the turnstiles once more, and Shultz ...
— A Son of the City - A Story of Boy Life • Herman Gastrell Seely

... habitation again: we shall see their different conduct presently. When the three came back like furious creatures, flushed with the rage which the work they had been about had put them into, they came up to the Spaniards, and told them what they had done, by way of scoff and bravado; and one of them stepping up to one of the Spaniards, as if they had been a couple of boys at play, takes hold of his hat as it was upon his head, and giving it a twirl about, fleering in his face, says to him, "And you, Seignior Jack Spaniard, shall have ...
— The Further Adventures of Robinson Crusoe • Daniel Defoe

... the door and looked at her cousin, who, with uncertain bravado, advanced with Fanny to his mother, who was gazing at them in amazement, and said, ...
— Trumps • George William Curtis

... Washington faction having waded through the slough of negociation, and whilst it amused France with professions of friendship contrived to injure her, immediately throws off the hypocrite, and assumes the swaggering air of a bravado. The party papers of that imbecile administration were on this occasion filled with paragraphs about Sovereignty. A paltroon may boast of his sovereign right to let another kick him, and this is the only kind of sovereignty shewn in the treaty with England. ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine

... put me out?" asked Cowan with a show of bravado. But he glanced toward the door as he ...
— Behind the Line • Ralph Henry Barbour

... emboldened by the hope forever to escape from her maternal tutelage, braved her scoldings and asked for a couple of sovereigns. He was sure that he should be in luck that night. She gave to him the sum, and spared the scoldings. But, as soon as he was gone, conjecturing from the bravado of his manner what had really occurred, Mrs. Crane put on her ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... at?" cried the driver, queruously. "Is this a hold-up?" It was a puzzling moment, but the criminologist's calm bravado saved the situation: as luck would have it no policemen were in sight, ...
— The Voice on the Wire • Eustace Hale Ball

... an impostor to his face was to devote myself to death; and the sacrifice for which I was prepared on the gallows, before all the world, and in the first heat of my indignation, appeared to me a useless piece of bravado. I ...
— The Daughter of the Commandant • Aleksandr Sergeevich Pushkin

... he there summoned Robert III. to do homage to him for his crown.[*****] But finding that the Scots would neither submit nor give him battle, he returned in three weeks, after making this useless bravado; ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part B. - From Henry III. to Richard III. • David Hume

... for his former conduct in office. Hence he was not inclined to audacity, but was considering how he might keep from getting into trouble again rather than how he might achieve success by some desperate venture. Terentius, however, had been brought up among the rabble, was practiced in vulgar bravado, and so displayed lack of prudence in nearly all respects; for instance, he promised himself general direction of the war, kept constantly annoying the patricians, and thought that he alone should have the leadership in view of the quiet behavior of his colleague. Now they both reached ...
— Dio's Rome, Vol VI. • Cassius Dio

... solved even by himself," remarked the Afghan with a laugh, half of bitterness, half of bravado. "We may know in our secret heart the motive that prompts to a deed, but we cannot tell the consequences of that deed as affecting even ourselves who wrought it. Take this very story of the Sheikh; when recovering his ...
— Tales of Destiny • Edmund Mitchell

... was quite unable to follow their example; he was annoyed with them for what he considered was 'showing off'—though he might have reflected that to consume three helpings of jam-and-suet in rapid succession was an almost impossible form of bravado. ...
— The Talking Horse - And Other Tales • F. Anstey

... said, with bravado. "America is not the place to be a ninny in. Come, pull yourself together." In truth, I addressed these exhortations as much to myself as to him; and so far, at least, as I was concerned, my ...
— The Rise of David Levinsky • Abraham Cahan

... rascal!' cried the commandant, after a few moments' survey. 'He is riding his horse right up to the city moat in sheer bravado. Quick, Defensioner, and show the fellow that there are men in here. Put ...
— The Young Carpenters of Freiberg - A Tale of the Thirty Years' War • Anonymous

... test and task for himself, which will assuredly make him cheerful. A knight is not contented with the statement that his commander has hid his plans so as to insure victory: what the knight wants is a sword. This demand for a task is not mere bravado, it is an eternal and natural part of the higher optimism, as deep-rooted ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward

... of the letter. It was so painful that it was destroyed; for there was a tone of bravado betraying his uneasiness, but altogether unbecoming. All that it disclosed was, that some one staying in the same house had paid insulting attentions to Lady Peacock; she had thrown herself on our brother's protection, and after interfering on her behalf, ...
— Chantry House • Charlotte M. Yonge

... fled away into town, where the sight of a saloon was too much for him and he went in to have a drink to take the horrors out of him. Since then, the detectives have followed all his movements and know just how much liquor he drank and to whom, in tipsy bravado, he showed the contents of his pockets. But he wasn't so far gone as not to have moments of apprehension when he thought of the dead man lying with his feet in Dark Hollow, and of the hue and cry which would soon be raised, ...
— Dark Hollow • Anna Katharine Green

... shameful. The only shame is to have none. Nothing reveals more an extreme weakness of mind than not to know the misery of a godless man. Nothing is more indicative of a bad disposition of heart than not to desire the truth of eternal promises. Nothing is more dastardly than to act with bravado before God. Let them then leave these impieties to those who are sufficiently ill-bred to be really capable of them. Let them at least be honest men, if they cannot be Christians. Finally, let them recognise that there are two kinds of ...
— Pascal's Pensees • Blaise Pascal

... air of bravado he held out his great arm. At the prick of the lancet the blood spurted out, splashing against ...
— Madame Bovary • Gustave Flaubert

... more bravado than I really felt, I plunked down on Goil's desk top a stack of sheets, a chart, and tapes. Then I put both palms down on his desk and leaned over until I looked him squarely ...
— Jack of No Trades • Charles Cottrell

... too much interested to keep those dignities and estates among themselves; but he gave out that he had received twelve thousand doubloons of gold in compromise from the other parties. Spotorno, under sanction of Ignazio de Giovanni, a learned canon, treats this assertion as a bravado, to cover his defeat, being contradicted by his evident poverty. [267] The family of Cuccaro, however, still maintain their right, and express great veneration for the memory of their illustrious ancestor, the admiral; and travelers occasionally visit their old castle in Piedmont ...
— The Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus (Vol. II) • Washington Irving

... worst of us!" said the Duchess, presently, with a sigh of bravado, as she handed Lord Lackington his cup of tea and sank back in her chair to ...
— Lady Rose's Daughter • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... Polish under foreman, sent his eyes darting from face to face. In his manner was a curious mingling of bravado and diffidence—a lumbering body, a shrinking way of holding himself, a stammering foreign accent and phrasing. But in spite of it there was ample ground for Torrance's persistent suspicions. Perhaps it was the darting, all-seeing ...
— The Return of Blue Pete • Luke Allan

... own damaged features were lowered as Rainey commenced to read. Only Deming's face, gray from the effort of coming on deck and the pain in his arm, held the semblance of a sneer that was largely bravado. A hunter had his arm tucked in that of his comrade with the broken ribs. A seaman was told off to the wheel and the schooner was held to the wind with all sheets close inboard, rising and falling on an ...
— A Man to His Mate • J. Allan Dunn

... straightened up with a ghost of renewed bravado and shook his head while an enigmatical grin ...
— The Roof Tree • Charles Neville Buck

... his own way died hard, but something conquered. "I'll do it! Just watch me," he said at last, a certain bravado accompanying his words. ...
— The House of the Misty Star - A Romance of Youth and Hope and Love in Old Japan • Fannie Caldwell Macaulay

... "I forbid you to do that again," and as I spoke I saw her little fingers twitch on her whip, but she dared not raise it. She laughed as a child will who knows she is at fault and is scared by her consciousness of guilt and would conceal it by a bravado of merriment; then she said in the sweetest, wheedling tone that I had ever heard from her, and I had known ...
— The Heart's Highway - A Romance of Virginia in the Seventeeth Century • Mary E. Wilkins

... the full cry after me; and there was one Jacquard amongst them who undertook to secure me if I were in the city. I was not unacquainted with these particulars, and instead of being more circumspect in my behaviour, I affected a ridiculous bravado. It might have been said that I ought to have had a portion of the premium promised for my apprehension. I was certainly hotly pursued, as may be ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume XII, No. 347, Saturday, December 20, 1828. • Various

... his speech was not bravado, but the honest expression of his mind. He was keyed up to a mood in which he feared nothing very much, certainly not the laws of his country. If he fell in with the Unknown, he was entirely resolved, if his Maker permitted him, to do murder as being the simplest and justest solution. And ...
— Huntingtower • John Buchan

... calmer, the sheriff left her standing there and went back into the cell. The prisoner's arm was bleeding from a flesh wound. His bravado had given place to a stony apathy. There was no sign in his face of fear or disappointment or feeling of any kind. The sheriff sent Polly to the house for cloth, and bound up the prisoner's wound with a rude skill acquired ...
— The Wife of his Youth and Other Stories of the Color Line, and - Selected Essays • Charles Waddell Chesnutt

... the red Mustang, Whose clusters hang O'er the waves of the Colorado, And the fiery flood Of whose purple blood Has a dash of Spanish bravado. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various

... went to look at the dead and wounded, perhaps from a feeling of bravado, perhaps to accustom ourselves to the sight. The enemy had paid dearly for their brave deed. They know the number of their dead and wounded better than we do, for they had opportunity enough to carry them away. On our side only four were killed and a few ...
— On Commando • Dietlof Van Warmelo

... same spirit of royal bravado, but finer still, and worked up with a truly Oriental exuberance of fancy and imagery, is her famous description of ...
— Characteristics of Women - Moral, Poetical, and Historical • Anna Jameson

... of his mission, he was directed, in his audience with Ivan, to present the letter with one hand while he held his unsheathed saber in the other. The officers of the imperial household assured him that such bravado would inevitably cost him ...
— The Empire of Russia • John S. C. Abbott

... bravado, Edgar,' was the grave answer, in a tone not disconcerted, but full of repression, and with a pale but steady countenance. 'Gloss it over as you will, a correspondence such as you have begun is unjustifiable. It risks damaging for ever the ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge

... deed was dared; and in a panic at sight of the mysteriously arriving troops, Von Kluck retreated from the Ourcq to the Aisne. It was when he heard how the trick had been played and won by sheer bravado, that he cried out in rage, "How could I count on such a coup? Not another military governor in a hundred would have risked throwing his whole force sixty kilometres from its base. How should I guess what a dare-devil fool Gallieni would turn out? But if Trochu, in '70, had been the same ...
— Everyman's Land • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson

... helping to load the "Magna Charter," and being half drunk, I fell into Hull harbour, with upwards of eight stones of coal on my back, but through foolish bravado I refused to let the bag drop into the water. After being in the water several minutes, I swam to the landing with the coals on my back, amid the deafening shouts of scores of spectators. I look back on this act of temerity with feelings of shame ...
— The Hero of the Humber - or the History of the Late Mr. John Ellerthorpe • Henry Woodcock

... and he regarded religion as a moral sanction of the law, the one and the other having been invented by men to regulate social relations. To kill any one in a duel, or in war, or in a quarrel, or by accident, or for the sake of revenge, or even through bravado would have seemed to him an amusing and clever thing and would not have left more impression on his mind than a shot fired at a hare; but he had experienced a profound emotion at the murder of this child. He had, in the first place, perpetrated it in the heat of an irresistible gust of passion, ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant

... carried off two young girls. Flushed with this success, they paddled down the river in their canoes and when they passed the Saybrook fort they set up poles, like masts, in the canoes and, by way of bravado, hung upon them the clothes of the Englishmen whom they had murdered. The men in the fort fired on the canoes, but the distance was too great. One shot just grazed the bow of the boat in which were the two young English girls. The Indians passed safely and carried their captives with ...
— Once Upon A Time In Connecticut • Caroline Clifford Newton

... probably not have acknowledged it if he had, smiled the indulgent smile of a self-satisfied superior and uttered a few equivocal sentences. This was gall and wormwood to Sweetwater, but he kept his temper admirably and, with an air of bravado entirely assumed for the ...
— Agatha Webb • Anna Katharine Green

... squad of soldiers when it came to fighting the Iroquois in their own forests. At the rendezvous across the lake from Cataraqui the French and their allies mustered nearly three thousand men. Denonville had none of his predecessor's bravado coupled with cowardice; his plans were carried forward with a precision worthy of Frontenac. Unlike Frontenac, however he had a scant appreciation of the skill with which the red man could get out of ...
— Crusaders of New France - A Chronicle of the Fleur-de-Lis in the Wilderness - Chronicles of America, Volume 4 • William Bennett Munro

... instant Raffles had seized the clubs, and was whirling them about his gray head in a mixture of childish pique and puerile bravado which I should have ...
— Raffles - Further Adventures of the Amateur Cracksman • E. W. Hornung

... in the convict's laugh, full of bravado as he meant it to be. Margery continued with an ominously extended forefinger. "And then they will fly to the great house where the master lies sleeping, and they will whisper to him that you took away the angel's gift from poor, lost Margery, and he will be angry, for he is good ...
— Prisoners of Hope - A Tale of Colonial Virginia • Mary Johnston

... to prevail in Flanders. Frederic de Conincq constructs dramas on the models of Lope de Vega, with the necessary quota of nocturnal visits, abductions, dagger-thrusts, and bravado. An action entirely Spanish is conducted in the veriest patois of Antwerp. Ogier follows in his footsteps, introducing upon the stage the coarsest language. He represents vice in its most revolting forms. His theory, as he himself explains it, is, that "it is necessary to represent ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. VI.,October, 1860.—No. XXXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... cities receive them; Nor one of your make-believe Spanish grandees, Who ply our daughters with lies and candies, Until the poor girls believe them. No, he was no such charlatan— Count de Hoboken Flash-in-the-pan, Full of gasconade and bravado— But a regular, rich Don Rataplan, Santa Claus de la Muscovado, Senor Grandissimo Bastinado. His was the rental of half Havana And all Matanzas; and Santa Anna, Rich as he was, could hardly hold A candle to light the mines of gold Our Cuban owned, ...
— Little Masterpieces of American Wit and Humor - Volume I • Various

... in angry bravado. "Do you think I'm going to let you butt into this? I guess you've got enough to do to look out ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... fasten on the particular one which is most detestable or most laughable; but it seems to us that when his arrogance apes humility it is deserving perhaps of an intenser degree of scorn or derision than when it riots in bravado. The most offensive part which he plays in public is that of "the humble individual," bragging of the lowliness of his origin, hinting of the great merits which could alone have lifted him to his present exalted station, and representing himself ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 109, November, 1866 • Various

... were amicably settled, and the patient little ponies, which had stood perfectly still throughout the squabble, feeling us mount into our places, started off at a full gallop out of the town almost before we had caught the reins. Sheer bravado on the part of the ponies, or one might perhaps better say training, for it is the habit of the country to go out of towns with a dash, and enter ...
— Through Finland in Carts • Ethel Brilliana Alec-Tweedie

... business too. But for the moment listen to something that concerns you. The Count is not yet thirty, his eyes are large and dreamy, his hair long, he wears no moustache, his manner is melancholy, there is no air of bravado about him. ...
— Captain Dieppe • Anthony Hope

... wind and sunshine in the most bravado manner, And after hours of sailing she has merely cheeks of rose; Old Sol himself seems smitten, and at most will only tan her, Though to everybody else he gives a ...
— The Kingdom of Love - and Other Poems • Ella Wheeler Wilcox

... more welcome inasmuch as Blake had previously suffered a signal defeat (28 Nov., 1652) at the hands of the Dutch admirals and had himself been wounded. Moreover Tromp had been so elated at his victory that in bravado he had fixed a broom to his masthead, in token of his resolution to sweep the sea of ...
— London and the Kingdom - Volume II • Reginald R. Sharpe

... up to windward along-shore in shallow water, which it was just possible she might attempt to do. Thus every chance of escape on that side was cut off from her. At length one of our shots struck her and carried away her main-topmast. Our crew gave a loud hurrah. It was replied to by her people in bravado. Several successive shots did further damage, yet still she would not give in. Her crew might have hoped to draw us on shore, but Captain Hudson was too wary to be thus ...
— Hurricane Hurry • W.H.G. Kingston

... and lashed out with both hind feet. You could have struck a match on the smoothest part of my earthly tabernacle as I dodged him by about half an inch. Then he went on cropping the grass as before, while I looked round and inquired with sickly bravado, "What noble Lucumo comes next, to taste our ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy

... token of reconciliation, a white satin slipper, entirely covered with large diamonds. The count invited the King of Spain to visit his Mexican territories, assuring him that the hoofs of his majesty's horse should touch nothing but solid silver from Vera Cruz to the capital. This might be a bravado; but a more certain proof of his wealth exists in the fact, that he caused two ships of the line, of the largest size, to be constructed in Havana at his expense, made of mahogany and cedar, and presented them to the king. The present count was, as I already told ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon de la Barca



Words linked to "Bravado" :   flash, bluster



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