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Bluster   /blˈəstər/   Listen
Bluster

verb
(past & past part. blustered; pres. part. blustering)
1.
Blow hard; be gusty, as of wind.  "The flames blustered"
2.
Show off.  Synonyms: blow, boast, brag, gas, gasconade, shoot a line, swash, tout, vaunt.
3.
Act in an arrogant, overly self-assured, or conceited manner.  Synonyms: swagger, swash.



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"Bluster" Quotes from Famous Books



... reprove, or scold at any one; also to bluster, bounce, ding, or swagger. A captain huff; a noted bully. To stand the huff; to be answerable for the reckoning in ...
— 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue • Captain Grose et al.

... bring together, and latro, to bark or bluster; possibly from lex, law, and latens, unknown. Hence, a company of men brought together to bluster, or a company of law makers who ...
— The Foolish Dictionary • Gideon Wurdz

... sublime Maupertuis; scientific lion of Paris, ever since his feat in the Polar regions, and the charming Narrative he gave of it. "What a feat, what a book!" exclaimed the Parisian cultivated circles, male and female, on that occasion; and Maupertuis, with plenty of bluster in him carefully suppressed, assents in a grandly modest way. His Portraits are in the Printshops ever since; one very singular Portrait, just coming out (at which there is some laughing): a coarse-featured, blusterous, ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle

... Villiers had crouched on the ground, half terrified, while his wife towered over him, magnificent in her anger. At the end, however, he recovered himself a little, and began to bluster. ...
— Madame Midas • Fergus Hume

... easily frightened. He may seem very large, and appear very strong in his independence; he may bluster about his determination to carry out his plans despite Mr. This and Mr. That; but he is soon reduced to his just proportions. His fever heat falls suddenly down to zero, if not twenty degrees below. You may ...
— Talkers - With Illustrations • John Bate

... brilliant career since the war began Joffre has developed some of the qualities notable in our own General Grant. There is not a particle of show or bluster about him. He dresses as plainly as possible, talks little and seems to prefer solitude. But his will is imperious and he does not hesitate when anything is to be done, whether it is pleasant or otherwise. For his men he has the greatest ...
— A Journey Through France in War Time • Joseph G. Butler, Jr.

... They bluster at first: being (as I have said) much of the temper and habits, for good and evil, of English navvies. But they grow more and more uneasy, full of childish curiosity, and undefined dread. So into the town they go, on promise (which they will honourably ...
— The Roman and the Teuton - A Series of Lectures delivered before the University of Cambridge • Charles Kingsley

... fighting instinct to the full. An encounter with a downright enemy was a delight to him. But the joy of battle never deadened his instinct of fair play. He would speak his mind, sometimes even with startling bluntness, but he never tried to silence an opponent by dogmatism or bluster. The keenest argument, therefore, could not betray him into the least discourtesy. He might occasionally frighten a nervous antagonist into reticence and be too apt to confound such reticence with ...
— The Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Bart., K.C.S.I. - A Judge of the High Court of Justice • Sir Leslie Stephen

... have no false notions about national "honor" such as were once held concerning personal "honor" in the days of dueling. We shall doubtless be in the wrong sometimes; we must welcome enlightenment and try to learn the better way. Apologizing is sometimes nobler than bluster; and he is no true lover of his country who seeks to condone, and ...
— Problems of Conduct • Durant Drake

... a hard, cold, cruel winter, and one that just suited old Frozen Nose, the Storm King, whose palace of ice was on the north shore of the Polar Sea. He had ordered Rain, Hail, and Snow, his slaves, to accompany Lord Boreas Bluster on an invasion of the temperate zone, and when they had done his bidding he harnessed up his four-in-hand team of polar bears and went as far south as he dared, just to see how well they had obeyed him. How he roared ...
— Prince Lazybones and Other Stories • Mrs. W. J. Hays

... said Furniss, coolly, 'bluster as much as you please, dear boy, and, when you are tired, go home. It is an hour earlier than you generally return. He will hardly have left. If you find your pretty little idol alone, and at her prayers, disbelieve me. If you find Mr. Crosby enjoying a tete-a-tete with her, ...
— Kate Danton, or, Captain Danton's Daughters - A Novel • May Agnes Fleming

... jealous, revengeful god, enshrined among his skeletons, was having in his turn an anxious and doubtful time of it. Ever since his sacred blood had stained the dust of earth by the Frenchman's cottage and in his own temple, Tu-Kila-Kila, for all his bluster, had been deeply stirred and terrified in his inmost soul by that unlucky portent. A savage, even if he be a god, is always superstitious. Could it be that his own time was, indeed, drawing nigh? That he, who ...
— The Great Taboo • Grant Allen

... precision and a swing of his left. He was heavier and harder, but David was more agile, and his whole heart was in the fight this time. They clutched and grappled and parried, and finally went down; first one was on top, then the other. It was the wage of brute force against elasticity; bluster against valor. Jud fought in fear; David, in ferocity. At last David bore his oppressor backward and downward. Jud, exhausted, ceased ...
— David Dunne - A Romance of the Middle West • Belle Kanaris Maniates

... the same thing in Lorient, too—and everywhere—in Paris, in Bordeaux, in Marseilles—even in Quimperle! And when all these cities are flying the red flag it won't be comfortable for cities that fly the tricolor." He began to bluster. "I'm mayor of Paradise, and I won't be bullied! You get out of here with your circus and your foolish elephants! I haven't any gendarmes just now to drive you out, but you had better start, all the ...
— The Maids of Paradise • Robert W. (Robert William) Chambers

... well recovered, I was going to say. I never saw him more gay, lively, and handsome. We had a good deal of bluster about some parts of the trust I had engaged in; and upon freedoms I had treated him with; in which, he would have it, that I had exceeded our agreed-upon limits; but on the arrival of our three old companions, and ...
— Clarissa Harlowe, Volume 9 (of 9) - The History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson

... with no footprints in their avenues; and passed scattered dwellings, whence puffed the smoke of country fires, strongly impregnated with the pungent aroma of burning peat. Sometimes, encountering a traveller, we shouted a friendly greeting; and he, unmuffling his ears to the bluster and the snow-spray, and listening eagerly, appeared to think our courtesy worth less than the trouble which it cost him. The churl! He understood the shrill whistle of the blast, but had no intelligence for our blithe tones of ...
— The Blithedale Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... in his blood! Moreover, he flattered himself that he had not begun to look old! Still, he was sensitive lest Carrissima should fancy he was making an ass of himself, and, as usual at such times, he began to bluster. ...
— Enter Bridget • Thomas Cobb

... to muster Here at the call of the old battle days: Cavalry clatter and cannon's hoarse bluster: All the wild whirl of the fight's broken maze: Clangor of bugle and flashing of sabre, Smoke-stifled flags and the howl of the shell, With earth for a rest place and death for a neighbor, And dreams of a charge and the deep rebel yell. Stern was our task ...
— Dreams and Days: Poems • George Parsons Lathrop

... children!" said the deep tones of the provost, who was the leader, counsellor and friend of the Lansquenets. "A devout servant must not bluster at the holy Christmas-tide; he's permitted to drink a glass, Heaven be praised. Your house is to be greatly honored, Landlord! The recruiting for our most gracious commander, Count von Oberstein, is—to be done here. Do you hear, man! Everything to be paid for in ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... very damaging to Whigs and Radicals, and likely to lead to a dissolution—first, of Parliament, and then of Government. But the Radicals are now adopting a whining, fawning tone, have dropt that of bluster and menace, and, having before rudely insisted on a mighty slice of the loaf, are now content to put their tails between their legs and swallow such crumbs as they can get. Peel has written and published a very stout letter, in ...
— The Greville Memoirs (Second Part) - A Journal of the Reign of Queen Victoria from 1837 to 1852 - (Volume 1 of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville

... series of lectures developing phases of the argument of the Great Illusion, Mr. NORMAN ANGELL incidentally deals with this greengrocery business. Nobody with knowledge of his shrewd and vigorous method will be surprised that without bluster or rhetoric he establishes a very clear verdict of acquittal. One has always the impression that the rationalist in him is deliberately repressing the mystic, lest his case be weakened by a suspicion of sentimentalism. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, April 22, 1914 • Various

... clear in spite of that feeling of sharp practice toward himself—nay, because of it; it was impossible to use the weapon that a former kindness had placed in his hand. He looked at Leverich now with an expression which the latter quieted himself to meet. This was a situation, not for bluster and rage, but ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol 31, No 2, June 1908 • Various

... condemns the works and arbitrary rules of hypocritical saints, whose severity will not permit them to associate with sinners. Their rigorous laws must be all-controlling. They do nothing but compel and drive. They exhibit no mercy, but perpetual reproach, censure, condemnation, blame and bluster. They can endure no imperfection. But among Christians many are sinners, many infirm. In fact, Christians associate only with these; not with saints. Christians reject none, but bear with all. Indeed, they are as sincerely ...
— Epistle Sermons, Vol. II - Epiphany, Easter and Pentecost • Martin Luther

... positively. "A cheap, gaudy show, all bluster and vulgarity. Even the dancing is a mere parody. ...
— Bob Hampton of Placer • Randall Parrish

... had seen her and, what was more, was in pursuit of her. He had been wanting for some time to have talk with Rosemary, but she had always, so it seemed, avoided him. Rosemary had never, at any time, liked Norman Douglas very well. His bluster, his temper, his noisy hilarity, had always antagonized her. Long ago she had often wondered how Ellen could possibly be attracted to him. Norman Douglas was perfectly aware of her dislike and he chuckled over it. It never ...
— Rainbow Valley • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... aroused my sensitive nature, and a violent outburst of temper was the result. I did not mind being called an Apeman so much, but hated the idea of being treated like one, so working myself into a passion I severely censured her, and with much bluster and many gestures endeavored to impress upon her mind how much superior I was to what she had imagined. It was some time before my anger abated, and then I noticed that she appeared quite unmoved by my wrath but sat looking ...
— Born Again • Alfred Lawson

... last Sandip has realized that he is weak before me! That is why there is this sudden outburst of anger. He has understood that he cannot meet the power that I wield, with mere strength. With a glance I can crumble his strongest fortifications. So he must needs resort to bluster. I simply smiled in contemptuous silence. At last have I come to a level above him. I must never lose this vantage ground; never descend lower again. Amidst all my degradation this bit of dignity must ...
— The Home and the World • Rabindranath Tagore

... frugal where there was any probability of considerable gain; but on the contrary, such as had been bred up in ignorance and hard labour, when they came to have plenty would extravagantly squander away their time and money in drinking and making a bluster." Indeed it is a melancholy proof how strangely power warps the minds of ordinary men, that there can be a doubt on this subject among persons who have been themselves educated. It tempts a suspicion that, unknown to themselves, they find a comfort in the thought, that their inferiors are something ...
— Confessions of an Inquiring Spirit etc. • by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... stop making shoes, and begin to write poetry. That is just as much discrimination as you have. Tell you to be gentle, and you think we want you to dissolve into milk-and-water; tell you to be polite, and you infer hypocrisy; to be neat, and you leap over into dandyism, fancying all the while that bluster is manliness. No, Sir. You may make shoes, you may run engines, you may carry coals; you may blow the huntsman's horn, hurl the base-ball, follow the plough, smite the anvil; your face may be brown, your veins knotted, your hands grimed; and yet you may be a hero. And, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 11, Issue 67, May, 1863 • Various

... permitted no woman or child to be hurt,—at the same time telling his prisoners that if any other New England village were treated as Deerfield had been, he would come back with a thousand Indians and leave them free to do what they pleased. With this bluster, he left the unfortunate peasants in the extremity of terror, after carrying off as many of them as were needed for purposes of exchange. A small detachment was sent to Beaubassin, where it ...
— A Half Century of Conflict - Volume I - France and England in North America • Francis Parkman

... Mr. Downes continued to bluster and Paul hung sullenly about the drawing room. I had got through with both of them, however. Whether the butler—and the other servants—backed me up, or not, I believed ...
— Swept Out to Sea - Clint Webb Among the Whalers • W. Bertram Foster

... difference between our supposed and our real intentions. In a word,—for this is the simple truth,—we regarded the manifestations of the seceding and rebelling States—or rather of the leaders and their followers in them—as in part bluster and in part a warning of what might ensue, though it would not be likely to ensue when their eyes were open to the truth. We were met by bold defiance, by outrageous abuse, and with an almost overwhelming venting of falsehoods. There was boastfulness, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 49, November, 1861 • Various

... with no wisdom fraught, Must end in wordy words, and come to nought; Just like St. James's, where they bluster, scold, They nothing know—yet they ...
— The Fall of British Tyranny - American Liberty Triumphant • John Leacock

... That good-natured bluster, that cry of a millionaire parvenu resuming the average opinion of the assembly, increased the general merriment; and he, flattered by his success, and tickled by the strange style of the painting, started laughing in his turn, so sonorously ...
— His Masterpiece • Emile Zola

... the Bandstand I said quietly: "Show me the jewellery Burker sent you, Dolly. I am very much in earnest, so don't bluster." ...
— Driftwood Spars - The Stories of a Man, a Boy, a Woman, and Certain Other People Who - Strangely Met Upon the Sea of Life • Percival Christopher Wren

... head, and the governess promised eagerly to do her very best. It was her first "place"; and by "nonsense" they both understood imagination. True enough, Jimbo's mother had given her rather different instructions as to the treatment of the boy, but she mistook the soldier's bluster for authority, and deemed it best to obey him. This was her ...
— Jimbo - A Fantasy • Algernon Blackwood

... back as 1860 passed every week on its northward way up along the coast of Norway, was of a very sociable turn of mind. It ran with much shrieking and needless bluster in and out the calm, winding fjords, paid unceremonious little visits in every out-of-the-way nook and bay, dropped now and then a black heap of coal into the shining water, and sent thick volleys of smoke and shrill little echoes careering aimlessly among ...
— Tales From Two Hemispheres • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen

... and therein set forth, that Aldermen Pennyworth, of the Sixth Ward, and Brandybottom, of the Second, together with Councilmen Bluster and Sputter, (the last named gentleman being clever at a speech,) be a committee of reception, invested with power to draw up and present a suitable address on behalf of the citizens of "this great metropolis." It was ...
— The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter • "Pheleg Van Trusedale"

... have been about it still. A sicker man than Urquhart, who made a hard death for himself, would have given up the battle, thrown himself at James's feet and asked no quarter. Urquhart was not so far gone as that; a little bluster remained. He did it badly. He didn't mean to be brutal; he meant to be honest; but it sounded brutal, and James ...
— Love and Lucy • Maurice Henry Hewlett

... men-servants, mounted, following him. He seemed friendly disposed and talkative, and as he too was going to Oxford, we agreed to join company, and fell into conversation. He asked me my errand and I replied, truly enough, I went to visit a gentleman at Oxford. He told me, with not a little bluster, he too went to wait upon a gentleman at Oxford, but he guessed the varlet would get little joy out of ...
— Sir Ludar - A Story of the Days of the Great Queen Bess • Talbot Baines Reed

... me with his threats! His bluster makes me laugh! And I dance the mothon for joy,[83] and sing at the ...
— The Eleven Comedies - Vol. I • Aristophanes et al

... leapt, but truth is unconsciously set at nought. We always allow for the words of some persons, for with them a scratch is a wound; a wind, a hurricane; one dollar, a thousand; and all they do in life, a big, big bluster. The only way to bring back English to a state of purity—for it has been outraged by slang, imitation, technical expressions, a straining after long words, and a regular system of exaggeration—is to speak simple words, using all necessary force ...
— Hold Up Your Heads, Girls! • Annie H. Ryder

... the officers' quarters, Mr Robert Roberts, and the other leads, as you well know, to the residency. Now go and find out for yourself, and don't air your salt-junk bluster ...
— Middy and Ensign • G. Manville Fenn

... cowardly brute, with all your bluster," he continued, turning round to Kirker, and looking him in the eye. "Up with that knife! quick! or I will send this bullet through your ...
— The Scalp Hunters • Mayne Reid

... jocular and friendly, and the business part will be in the postscript; the second will be pathetic and somewhat reproachful, and the demands more urgent; finally, if money is not forthcoming, he will bluster and threaten and make himself exceedingly unpleasant. Cedric must simply have no dealings with him; and above all things, he must take ...
— Herb of Grace • Rosa Nouchette Carey

... as their platform, and elections have been carried upon it. Its value as a support to the dignity and self-importance of local politicians was readily apprehended by them; and it was in perfect harmony with the tone of bluster which pervaded our politics. The thorough refutation which it always encountered, whenever it was seriously considered, never seemed to do its popularity any harm. In truth, mere vaporing hurt nobody, and caused no great alarm. But when the Hartford Convention was suspected ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 46, August, 1861 • Various

... if you can. I'll go on to the baker's. We'll meet again opposite the church. If I'm not there in twenty minutes go back without me; I'll wait that long for you. Walk in as if you owned the shanty. There's nothing starts suspicion as quick as looking frightened. Bluster a bit if they look crooked at you, and answer no ...
— The Northern Iron - 1907 • George A. Birmingham

... to say:—"If the Devil lets him off easy, I'll ..." and stopped short. It may have been because he reflected on the limitations of poor Humanity, and the futility of bluster in this connection, or because he had a question to ask. It related to Aunt M'riar's unaccountable ignorance throughout of Daverill's transportation to Norfolk Island, and the particular felony that led to it. "If you was not by way of ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan

... some outer skin of Articulate Intelligence, with which he strives to render his dumb Instinctive Doings presentable when they are done. Such philosophies will arise; be preached as Mammon-Gospels, the ultimate Evangel of the World; be believed, with what is called belief, with much superficial bluster, and a kind of shallow satisfaction real in its way:—but they are ominous gospels! They are the sure, and even swift, forerunner of great changes. Expect that the old System of Society is done, is dying and fallen ...
— Past and Present - Thomas Carlyle's Collected Works, Vol. XIII. • Thomas Carlyle

... took his stand in the front door with an axe in his hand. When the mob came up and demanded the Abolitionist, he gave warning that he would brain the first man that attempted to enter his house without his consent. So evidently in earnest was he that the rowdies, after a little bluster, concluded to give up the hunt and ...
— The Abolitionists - Together With Personal Memories Of The Struggle For Human Rights • John F. Hume

... and defended by those European powers. On the other hand, the Northern people did not believe that the South would dare to fight for slavery when it had 4,000,000 slaves exposed to the chances of war. They thought it to be all bluster, and hence paid little heed to the threat of secession or of war. Both sides sadly learned their ...
— A Brief History of the United States • Barnes & Co.

... subject, the officers conclude that you have not any thing of importance, and will pass your things over more lightly than if you were present, as when witnesses are by they like to preserve the appearance of doing their duty strictly. I have seen some of the English bluster and go in a passion about having their things tumbled about, as they expressed it, but it only makes matters worse. I have known the searchers in those cases to turn a large chest completely topsy-turvy, so that not a single ...
— How to Enjoy Paris in 1842 • F. Herve

... and as its self-constituted universal provider of intellectual fare, he deemed it his duty to settle this, amongst others of the eternal questions. The effort excited only the contempt of Leslie Stephen—"the peculiar Warburton mixture," he says "of sham logic and bluster." Yet that is hardly fair to the total result of Warburton's remarks. He tried to steer a middle path between the logical result of such Erastianism as that of the Independent Whig, on the one hand, and the excessive claim of High Churchmanship on the other. Naturally enough, or the writer would ...
— Political Thought in England from Locke to Bentham • Harold J. Laski

... sparing themselves at all, the fathers gave in alternation their inspired discourses, which were the health and medicine of the many who were there—the ship so conforming itself to these that it seemed a reformed convent, where before it had been a house of confusion and bluster, ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XXI, 1624 • Various

... Cotton Mather, the holy man, the champion against the Evil One, the saint who walked with God, and daily lifted up his voice in prayer and defiance and thanksgiving—he was ever at hand, to cross-question, to insinuate, to surmise, to bluster, to interpret, to terrify, to perplex, to vociferate: surely, this paragon of learning and virtue must know more about the devil than any mere layman could pretend to know; and they must accept his assurance and guidance. "I stake ...
— The History of the United States from 1492 to 1910, Volume 1 • Julian Hawthorne

... boy," cried Sir Morton, laughing. "Just that one act shows the man's character to a T. Bluster, and then retreat. But suppose it should come to fighting, my boy. Hadn't you better go back to school, and stay till the ...
— The Black Tor - A Tale of the Reign of James the First • George Manville Fenn

... hall Preparations were made for the Christmas ball. Gay garlands were hung from ceiling and wall; The Yule log was laid, the tables arrayed, And the Lady Lorraine and her whole cavalcade, From the pompous old steward to the scullery-maid, Were all in a fluster, Excitement and bluster, And everything shone with ...
— The Jingle Book • Carolyn Wells

... "some sort of Reform" (As we all must, God help us! with very wry faces;) And loud as he likes let him bluster and storm About Corporate Rights, so ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al

... nothing like bluster in the words, and Mr. Caleb Cooler knew Bart meant exactly what ...
— Frank Merriwell's Cruise • Burt L. Standish

... surprisingly bold and self-reliant, named his terms to Castellani—a half-interest in the business—and Castellani, swear and bully and bluster as he might, must accept. This made Sampey a rich man at once. Castellani, exceedingly gracious and friendly after the signing of the compact, proposed a quiet supper in his private apartments in celebration of the new arrangement, and presently ...
— The Ape, the Idiot & Other People • W. C. Morrow

... and appetites: for ill successe faileth not in a beginning, the grounde whereof abhorring reason, is planted and layed vppon the sandie foundacion of pleasure, which is shaken and ouerthrowen, by the least winde and tempest that Fortune can bluster ...
— The Palace of Pleasure, Volume 1 • William Painter

... I have endeavored neither to creep nor to bluster, for no author is so likely to betray his translator into both these faults, as HOMER, though himself never guilty of either. I have cautiously avoided all terms of new invention, with an abundance of which, persons of more ingenuity than judgment have not enriched our language, but incumbered ...
— The Iliad of Homer - Translated into English Blank Verse • Homer

... repeated Hildegarde sternly, with a sudden light in her gray eyes which made the rascal step backward and thrust the papers hurriedly into the drawer. After which he began to bluster, as is the manner of cowards. "Pooty thing, city gals comin' hectorin' round with ...
— Queen Hildegarde • Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards

... storm-king put the brook to bed, and threw a great mantle of snow over him; and the brook that had romped and prattled all the summer and told pretty tales to the grass and flowers,—the brook went to sleep too. With all his fierceness and bluster, the storm-king was very kind; he did not awaken the old oak-tree and the slumbering flowers. The little vine lay under the fleecy snow against the old stone wall and slept peacefully, and so did the violet and the daisy. Only the wicked old thistle thrashed ...
— A Little Book of Profitable Tales • Eugene Field

... Bluster,[85] Davie Bluster, If for a saint ye do muster, The corps is no nice of recruits; Yet to worth let's be just, Royal blood ye might boast, If the ass was the king ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham

... a jolly good fellow though, in spite of his bluster and boisterous ways. There was a wealth of sunshine in his honest heart, and he evidently wanted to render everybody happy. He appeared to have entered into a compact with Santa Claus to make it his business to see that the boys and girls should ...
— Apples, Ripe and Rosy, Sir • Mary Catherine Crowley

... and confident. There was no self-assurance or bluster about it, and yet it was convincing. She looked ...
— The Tempting of Tavernake • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... no' offer to send him home in the spring-cart? It's sair wet for him to be walking in the wind and the rain the day.' Or: 'He had a fine bloom on his cheeks, I'll warrant, when he came in through this morning's bluster of wind.' Or again: 'He'll be riding to the hunt with my father to-day; have they put their pink coats ...
— A Dozen Ways Of Love • Lily Dougall

... people who assume that gushing women are shallow, but this is jumping at conclusions. A recent novel gives us a picture of "a tall soldier," who, in camp, was very full of brag and bluster. We are quite sure that when the fight comes on this man with the lubricated tongue will prove an arrant coward; we assume that he will run at the first smell of smoke. But we are wrong—he stuck; and when the flag was carried ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 2 of 14 - Little Journeys To the Homes of Famous Women • Elbert Hubbard

... their daily avocations for the time being, all spending their earnings, or borrowings, or stealings, on bits of pasteboard that admit them to their nightly banquet. The stage struck always copy the traits of the leading actor of the hour, whoever he may be, and grunt and bluster in imitation of "Ned"—meaning Forrest—or quack and stutter a la "Bill"—that is, Macready—as the wind of popular favor veers and changes. It is curious, at a representation of the "Gladiator," to winnow these young gentlemen ...
— The Three Brides, Love in a Cottage, and Other Tales • Francis A. Durivage

... your master, and being within an ace of qualifying yourself to be tried for murder,' interposed Ralph. 'I speak plainly, young man, bluster as you will.' ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens

... his best to rid them in future of this "superfluous swelling." So he indulged in a critical Donnybrook; but after hitting out and about at the Essay for three months he left it much as he found it.(19) He could not get to close quarters with Farmer's scholarship. His bluster compares ill with Farmer's gentler manner, and in some passages the quiet humour has proved too subtle for his animosity. There was more impartiality in the judgment of Johnson: "Dr. Farmer, you have done that which was never done before; that is, you ...
— Eighteenth Century Essays on Shakespeare • D. Nichol Smith

... after the vanishing of the hated wolverines. A crow lifted on rounded vans, marking their departure, and it was seen. A blackcock launched from a high tree with a whir and a bluster like an aeroplane, showing their course, and it was noted. An eagle climbed heavily and ponderously over the low curtain of the snow mist, pointing their way, and it was followed. All the wild, all the world, seemed to be against the wolverines. The brigands were afoot ...
— The Way of the Wild • F. St. Mars

... the Lords thought that the threats used against them in the course of the election meant nothing and were only a kind of bluster to get the Budget passed, they were grievously mistaken. It must have been hard for them to realize that Lloyd George meant all the presumptuous things he said. He was never more in earnest. A cut-and-dried ...
— Lloyd George - The Man and His Story • Frank Dilnot

... upon a small cask, which Frederick placed for her, and which Reinhold carefully dusted. At Master Martin's express desire they again struck up the admirable song in which they had been so rudely interrupted by Conrad's bluster; but he went on with his work at the bench, quite still, and entirely wrapped up in ...
— Weird Tales, Vol. II. • E. T. A. Hoffmann

... delivered at the House of Commons. Fergus O'Connor dissuaded them from any collision with the authorities. In a speech full of bombast and egotism, he declared that he was personally marked out for slaughter by the authorities. Thus, after all the bluster of this great tribune, as his followers called him, he showed the white feather. He was not prepared, like Smith O'Brien, gallantly to go out, with his life in his hand, and verify, by exposing himself to ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan

... the cherry! O sweeter than the berry! O nymph more bright Than moonshine night, Like kidlings blithe and merry! Ripe as the melting luster; Yet hard to tame As raging flame, And fierce as storms that bluster! ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 2 (of 4) • Various

... gale and bluster, sleet and storm, in almost every section of our broad domain,—and March at Warrener was to the full as blustering and conscienceless as in New England. There were a few days of sunshine during the first week; then came a fortnight ...
— The Deserter • Charles King

... by endeavoring to use Canada as a base for border raids. Yet in the smaller towns and in the country sympathy was decidedly on the other side, particularly after the "Herald" had ceased its campaign of bluster and after Lincoln's proclamation had brought the moral issue again to the fore. The fact that a large number of Canadians, popularly set at forty thousand, enlisted in the Northern armies, is to be explained in part by the call of adventure and the lure of high bounties, but it must ...
— The Canadian Dominion - A Chronicle of our Northern Neighbor • Oscar D. Skelton

... him now and the effect of it those long years ago. He had no feeling of uneasiness in her presence now, no sense of irritation. In spite of her tirade, he had a feeling that it didn't matter, that she must bluster in her tiny teacup if ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... said his wife, fiercely. "You think you're going to carry it off with a high hand and bluster; but you won't bluster me, my man. I'm not one of your meek and mild women who'll put up with anything. I'm not ...
— Light Freights • W. W. Jacobs

... worthless, as kings could well be, but they did possess the royal prerogative of inspiring men with an extraordinary devotion. There was something to be said for the cause which could send a man like Balmerino so gallantly to his death with such a brave piece of soldierly bluster upon ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume II (of 4) • Justin McCarthy

... Dicky off to myself for a long time, and very gently led him up to the question of loving him hard in this new way, he might be induced to sip out of the cup just to see if he liked it—and it might be just what he craved, for the time being; but I doubt it. He would storm and bluster ...
— The Tinder-Box • Maria Thompson Daviess

... of a few days, my Father rode over to Andover, and sent for Griffith down to the Star Inn, to pay him his bill. Having expostulated with him upon his conduct to me, and his still more unfeeling conduct if possible to himself; Griffith chose to bluster and bully, upon which my father coolly turned him out of the room, telling him that his gown alone saved him from the chastisement that he merited; a privilege which the parson did not choose to waive. He, therefore sneaked off, in order to save himself from being either kicked or horse-whipped. ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 1 • Henry Hunt

... nigh exhausted the slender stock of evidence with which he had started. For a few minutes longer he tried by sheer bluster to conceal the poverty of the case, and last of all he handed one of Cobham's confessions to the Clerk of the Crown to be read in court. It entered into no particulars, which Cobham said their lordships must not expect from him, for he was so confounded that he had lost his memory, but it vaguely ...
— Raleigh • Edmund Gosse

... synod unbenign; and taught the fixed Their influence malignant when to shower— Which of them rising with the Sun or falling, Should prove tempestuous. To the winds they set Their corners, when with bluster to confound Sea, air, and shore; the thunder when to roll With terror through ...
— The Astronomy of Milton's 'Paradise Lost' • Thomas Orchard

... first time he had used the "sir." For an instant it seemed a weakening. It gave Mister Fitzgibbon the heart to bluster. ...
— The Blood Ship • Norman Springer

... three or four other hats, including the glossy castor of Joe Willis, the self-elected and would-be champion of the neighbourhood, a well-to-do young butcher of twenty-eight or thereabouts, and a great strapping fellow, with his full allowance of bluster. This is a capital show of gamesters, considering the amount of the prize; so, while they are picking their sticks and drawing their lots, I think I must tell you, as shortly as I can, how the noble old game of back-sword is played; for it is sadly gone out of late, even ...
— Tom Brown's Schooldays • Thomas Hughes

... was rallying John upon his gravity, kindly and delicately, even in the midst of the natural noisy bluster of his manner. And somehow I divined readily, even out of the distraction of wonder that had come upon me, that the fine old gentleman, remembering certain thorns in John's way, was touched at seeing him proud and reserved in the presence of his natural ...
— The Late Miss Hollingford • Rosa Mulholland

... of Torvey: a scholler, a cobler, a tincker, a smith; with Bluster, a seaman, travel from ...
— Microcosmography - or, a Piece of the World Discovered; in Essays and Characters • John Earle

... indirectly, with Governor Frederick Haldimand of Canada, who hoped to win the Vermonters over to the British cause. He seems to have assured Haldimand's agent that "I shall do everything in my power to make this state a British province.'' In March 1781 he wrote to Congress, with characteristic bluster, "I am as resolutely determined to defend the independence of Vermont as congress that of the United States, and rather than fail will retire with the hardy Green Mountain Boys into the desolate caverns of the mountains and wage war with human nature at large.'' He removed ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... The Captain would be a frightful man to meet socially. I can hear a host saying "Shake hands with the Captain." One quite loses his taste for dinner parties. There is a sabre cut across the Captain's cheek. He is even more disreputable in appearance than his followers, with a bluster that marks ...
— Wappin' Wharf - A Frightful Comedy of Pirates • Charles S. Brooks

... and his tones were firm, with no bluster nor bluff in them, "we came out here to find Tom Swift, and were going to find him! We have reason to believe he's here—at least, he started for here," he substituted, as he wished to make no statement he could not prove. "Now we don't claim we have any right ...
— Tom Swift and his War Tank - or, Doing his Bit for Uncle Sam • Victor Appleton

... retorted Mrs. Martin. "The more you treat 'em like boys, the better they think you use 'em. They always want motherin', an' somebody to come to. I always tell folks I've got five child'n, counting Mr. Martin the youngest. The more bluster they have, the more boys they be. Now Marthy knew that about brother Isr'el, an' she always ruled him by love an' easin' of him down from them high perches he was always settin' upon. Everything was always right with her an' all ...
— The Life of Nancy • Sarah Orne Jewett

... stood Each like a poor and pitied widowhood. The cirque profan'd was, and all postures rack'd; For men did strut, and stride, and stare, not act. Then temper flew from words, and men did squeak, Look red, and blow, and bluster, but not speak; No holy rage or frantic fires did stir Or flash about the spacious theatre. No clap of hands, or shout, or praise's proof Did crack the play-house sides, or cleave her roof. Artless the scene was, and that monstrous sin ...
— The Hesperides & Noble Numbers: Vol. 1 and 2 • Robert Herrick

... stopped his speech, made ill at ease by the incessant pressing of the look, he was caught and held by it to a longer silence than he had meant to permit. He could now read meanings. That unflinching look incurred by his smooth bluster was a telling blend of ...
— Merton of the Movies • Harry Leon Wilson

... intimidate him by his severity and awe him by the manifestation of his greatness. In fact, associating business success with his father's manners and methods, Allen had come to believe that force meant noise and bluster, and that firmness stood for an intolerance of discussion. But here, in the midst of his family, Robert Gorham displayed a side of his nature which Stephen Sanford had never seen; yet Allen was no less conscious of the man's power. The ...
— The Lever - A Novel • William Dana Orcutt

... rolled round. The reception of it was stormy, even in Scandinavia, and led to violent outbursts of controversy. No work from the master's pen had roused more difference of opinion among the critics since the bluster over Ghosts fourteen years before. Those who prefer to absolute success in the creation of a work of art the personal flavor or perfume of the artist himself were predisposed to place Little Eyolf ...
— Henrik Ibsen • Edmund Gosse

... else, it won't be to our credit," put in Roy. "If we can't stand up to bluster and sedition with that moral force at our backs, we shall ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver

... though the Norman role of privilege could be engrafted on a society imbued with the Saxon spirit of equality: and he clinched the absurdity of his thought by uttering the prediction, that, though the people might bluster a little when such reform was proposed, yet they never would resist by force; and if they did, a demonstration of British power, such as the presence of the King's troops in a few coast-towns and the occupation ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 56, June, 1862 • Various

... 'Marvin Memorandum'— should become public; and this looks very much as though Marvin was really the Russian Government, which I have always suspected. They had this to gain by publishing the Memorandum—that they showed themselves the real victors in the Congress of Berlin, in spite of all our bluster, and they damaged Lord Beaconsfield, who was their enemy. Marvin could never have got a copy, and always pretended that he had learned the whole document by heart, which, considering its length and the total absence in the copy published in the Globe ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke V1 • Stephen Gwynn

... another in London." He was interrupted by the first call for dinner, which the trumpeter announced at the bottom of the companionway. The trumpet blast was lost without resonance in the heavy air and the bluster of the waves. "What's more," he concluded, "she ...
— Atlantis • Gerhart Hauptmann

... fairy-land is this noiseless prow, looking in and out of one flowery cove after another, scarcely stirring the turtle from his log, and leaving no wake behind! It seemed as if all the process of rowing had too much noise and bluster, and as if the sharp slender wherry, in particular, were rather too pert and dapper to win the confidence of the woods and waters. Time has dispelled the fear. As I rest poised upon the oars above some submerged shallow, diamonded with ripple-broken sunbeams, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 47, September, 1861 • Various

... Church, and the Forge, And round the Pound, and skirting the Pond, Till they come to the whitewashed cottage beyond, And there at the door they muster and cluster, And thump, and kick, and bellow, and bluster - Enough to put Old Nick in a fluster! A noise, indeed, so loud and long, And mixed with expressions so very strong, That supposing, according to popular fame, "Wise Woman" and Witch to be the same, No hag with a broom ...
— Playful Poems • Henry Morley

... know you're in there, and with whom. Just wait, wait!" Instantly, like a libertine stirred by fear of discovery in the open, he recovered his strength and hurled himself madly upon the ventriloquist whose voice continued to bluster outside the room. In this wise he experienced the pleasures ...
— Against The Grain • Joris-Karl Huysmans

... beard; brave &c. (courage) 861; bid defiance to; set at defiance, set at naught; hurl defiance at; dance the war dance, beat the war drums; snap the fingers at, laugh to scorn; disobey &c. 742. show fight, show one's teeth, show a bold front; bluster, look big, stand akimbo, beat one's chest; double the fist, shake the fist; threaten &c. 909. challenge, call out; throw down the gauntlet, fling down the gauntlet, fling down the gage, fling down the glove, throw down the glove. Adj. defiant; defying &c. v.;"with arms ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget

... the other. He leaned back in his chair. His elbow rested on the chair-arm, his fingers were set, tips on his chin, and over them he surveyed his listeners with calmness. He did not raise his voice. It was his mild manner that made what he said sound so balefully savage. Bluster would ...
— The Ramrodders - A Novel • Holman Day

... of about twenty-five years of age entered from the bluster of the storm. As Susannah was trying to push out past him into its fury, he paused, staring in ...
— The Mormon Prophet • Lily Dougall

... ordinary circumstances, are comfortable, self-asserting, sufficient, and even bold; the lines of which, under difficulties, collapse and become mean, spiritless, and insignificant. There are faces which, in their usual form, seem to bluster with prosperity, but which the loss of a dozen points at whist will reduce to that currish aspect which reminds one of a dog-whip. Mr. Camperdown's countenance, when Lord Fawn and Mr. Eustace left ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope

... We-ell, now, I have knowed it to storm, and storm hard, after this time uh year. But comin' the way she did last fall, 'n' all this here wind 'n' bluster 'n' snowin' on the Zandias and never comin' no further down, I calc'late the chances is slim, boy—'n' gittin' slimmer every day, now I'm ...
— The Phantom Herd • B. M. Bower

... of Rock Creek, after dinner, and in a little while the performance begins. There is nothing of the gentle pattering shower about a rain and wind storm on these elevated plains; it comes on with a blow and a bluster that threatens to take one off his feet. The rain is dashed about in the air by the wild, blustering wind, and comes from all directions at the same time. While you are frantically hanging on to your ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens

... impervious to the veiled hostility that met him everywhere, faced Steptoe Service and made his request, that dignitary felt a chill go down his spine. Like Old Pete he felt the man beneath the surface. He met him, however, with bluster and refused all reopening of a matter which he declared settled with the burial of the snow-packer in the sliding canyons where he ...
— Tharon of Lost Valley • Vingie E. Roe

... said I, "would Pope have raved had he been served so?" "We should never," replied he, "have heard the last on't, to be sure; but then Pope was a narrow man: I will however," added he, "storm and bluster myself a little this time;"—so went to London in all the wrath he could muster up. At his return I asked how ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell

... party forming in the South, whether they attain to a majority or not, and this party will be the germ of disaster to the secessionists. There are men enough, even in South Carolina, who would gladly be paid for their slaves, and these men, while maintaining secession views in full bluster, would readily enough find some indirect means of realizing money on their chattels. It may work gradually—but it will work. As disaster and poverty increase in the South, there will increase with them the number of those who will ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I., No. IV., April, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... lick this blizzard; I'm going to live the night. It can't down me with its bluster—I'm not the kind to be beat. On hands and knees will I buck it; with every breath will I fight; It's life, it's life that I fight for—never it seemed so sweet. I know that my face is frozen; my hands are numblike and dead; But oh, my feet keep a-moving, heavy and hard and slow; They're ...
— Ballads of a Cheechako • Robert W. Service

... had reached the top of the Rue de la Banne, Macquart, who had stationed himself at the rear, detained four of his companions, big fellows who were not over-burdened with brains and whom he swayed by his tavern bluster. He easily persuaded them that the enemies of the Republic must be arrested immediately if they wished to prevent the greatest calamities. The truth was that he feared Pierre might escape him in the midst of the confusion ...
— The Fortune of the Rougons • Emile Zola



Words linked to "Bluster" :   hyperbolise, amplify, self-praise, confusion, flash, puff, boasting, ostentation, triumph, magnify, crow, hyperbolize, overstate, gloat, vaunt, blast, exaggerate, gust, jactitation, behave, fanfare, do, overdraw, act



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