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Bluster   Listen
verb
Bluster  v. i.  (past & past part. blustered; pres. part. blustering)  
1.
To blow fitfully with violence and noise, as wind; to be windy and boisterous, as the weather. "And ever-threatening storms Of Chaos blustering round."
2.
To talk with noisy violence; to swagger, as a turbulent or boasting person; to act in a noisy, tumultuous way; to play the bully; to storm; to rage. "Your ministerial directors blustered like tragic tyrants."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Bluster" Quotes from Famous Books



... in Arizona," said Jean, slowly. "I know little about ranchers or sheepmen. It's true my father sent for me. It's true, I dare say, that he bragged, for he was given to bluster an' blow. An' he's old now. I can't help it if he bragged about me. But if he has, an' if he's justified in his stand against you sheepmen, I'm goin' to do my best to live ...
— To the Last Man • Zane Grey

... leapingly responsive to all strong stimuli—a temperament moreover that the war and the armistice between them had turned wholly toward the stimuli of fever—and Ted had made it with neither bravado nor bluster and without any particular sense of doing very much—and now this girl was going to smash it and him together as if she were doing nothing more important than playing ...
— Young People's Pride • Stephen Vincent Benet

... you what I'll do," whispered George, who, for all his bluster was as curious as myself. "We will try the rear door where there are fewer persons. Possibly we can make our way in there, and if we can, Slater will tell us all we want ...
— Initials Only • Anna Katharine Green

... Konto had made a fine offer, and a grand chance of a great fight had been missed. This was in the presence of several petty officers and Indians and woodsmen at the Fort. Fyles had vanity and a nasty temper. He swore a little, and with words of bluster went over and ripped the epaulettes from the chief's shoulders as a punishment, a mark of degradation. The chief said nothing. He got up, and reached out his hands as if to ask them back; and when Fyles refused, he went away, drawing ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... consider their grievances, and "with the advice and consent of the Estates of England convened in Parliament, to settle a firm and desirable peace." The prayer was backed by preparations for a march upon York, where Charles had abandoned himself to despair. The warlike bluster of Strafford had broken utterly down the moment he attempted to take the field. His troops were a mere mob; and neither by threats nor prayers could the earl recall them to their duty. He was forced to own that two months were needed before they could be fit for action. Charles ...
— History of the English People, Volume V (of 8) - Puritan England, 1603-1660 • John Richard Green

... not know the somewhat vulgar word which heads this paper. At least he did not know it as a noun, but gives "swagger: v.n., to bluster, bully, brag;" but the Slang Dictionary admits it as a word, springing indeed from the thieves' vocabulary: "one who carries a swag." Neither of these books however give the least idea of the true meaning of the expression, ...
— Station Amusements • Lady Barker

... blowing that was as salt as sea-winds are, yet travelled more mildly over the estuary land than it would have over the waves, like some old captain who from old age had come to live ashore and keeps the roll and bluster of his calling though he does no more than tell ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West

... of such testimony it seems a bold thing to assert that there was a vast amount of noise and bluster which caused a temporary panic, but little else, and that after all Hurd's view of the matter was nearer the truth. 'The truth of the case,' he writes, 'is no more than this. A few fashionable men make a noise in the world; and this clamour ...
— The English Church in the Eighteenth Century • Charles J. Abbey and John H. Overton

... oscillating upon the strong current; now quite stationary, except a slight tremulous motion like the poise of a rope-dancer, then rising and falling in long undulations, and seeming to resign themselves passively to the wind; or, again sailing high and level far above the mountain's peak, no bluster and haste, but as stated, occasionally a terrible earnestness and speed. Fire at one as he sails overhead and, unless wounded badly, he will not change his ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs

... Have you read the Kaiser's speeches? If you have not a copy, I advise you to buy it; they will soon be out of print, and you won't have any more of the same sort again. They are full of the clatter and bluster of German militarists—the mailed fist, the shining armour. Poor old mailed fist—its knuckles are getting a little bruised. Poor shining armour—the shine is being knocked out of it. But there is the same swagger and boastfulness running through the whole ...
— Selected Speeches on British Foreign Policy 1738-1914 • Edgar Jones

... had come to bluster, was a bit nonplussed, even a bit abashed by the superb and easy manner of the man. Never in her life had she been privileged, indeed, to meet with a reception so graceful and so courteous. Could she, after all, be wrong? Here, at last, in an apartment on the top floor ...
— The Old Flute-Player - A Romance of To-day • Edward Marshall and Charles T. Dazey

... the Squire, looking down at her, his great bearded face all slyly quirked with humor—"Abigail, look here. There are a good many things that you and I can do, and a few that we can't do. I can fish and shoot and ride with any man in the county, and bluster folks into doing what I want them to mostly, if I keep my temper; and as for you—you know what you can do in the way of fine stitching, and punch-making, and house-keeping, and you and I together have got the best, and the handsomest, and the most blessed"—the Squire's voice broke—"daughter ...
— Jerome, A Poor Man - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

... Sun had a quarrel about which of them was the stronger. While they were disputing with much heat and bluster, a Traveler passed along the ...
— The AEsop for Children - With pictures by Milo Winter • AEsop

... unsleeping. The even bluster of the mistral, with which he had been combating some hours, had not suspended, though it had embittered, that predominant passion. His first look was for his wife, a look of hope and suspicion, menace ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume XXI • Robert Louis Stevenson

... here," began the lank man with that sort of persuasiveness which can turn instantly into bluster, "all this is pure foolishness, you know. We're here to stay. We've bought this place, and some other land to go with it, and we expect to stay right here and make a living. It happens that we expect ...
— Flying U Ranch • B. M. Bower

... disagreed with him. Now, a different order of things prevailed. Boulton was simply unendurable. His capacity was barely such as to enable him to discharge his official functions, and what he lacked in ability he made up for in bluster. He had an abominable temper, and a haughty, overbearing manner. He was always committing blunders which he refused to acknowledge, and he roared and bullied his way through one complication after another in a fashion which disgusted even those with whom he acted. During the discussion on the Salary ...
— The Story of the Upper Canada Rebellion, Volume 1 • John Charles Dent

... was further resolved, 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 also resolved, in a flourish of speech utterly unknown in anything ...
— The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter • "Pheleg Van Trusedale"

... the 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 article has escaped examination, and the whole has ...
— How to Enjoy Paris in 1842 • F. Herve

... slipped again into the darkness, and Parish, lifting the half-conscious figure from the bed, wrapped it in a bear-skin rug and carried it out into the sleety bluster. ...
— The Roof Tree • Charles Neville Buck

... contemptuously, and in a hectoring manner; to bluster, to abuse, and to insult noisily. Shakspeare makes mine host of the Garter ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth

... 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 pity ...
— Merton of the Movies • Harry Leon Wilson

... bluster, General De Wet's surrender was a particularly tame affair. Said the captive to the captor: "I seem to know you — are you not Jordaan?" "Yes, General," replied the captor. "I saw you at Vereeniging where we made peace." "Very well," rejoined the captive, ...
— Native Life in South Africa, Before and Since • Solomon Tshekisho Plaatje

... Aylward began to bluster about interference with his servants and so forth. Jeekie turned on him with a very ugly grin, and showing his white teeth, as was his fashion ...
— The Yellow God - An Idol of Africa • H. Rider Haggard

... let it take them! What have we to do With Kaikobad the Great, or Kaikhosru? Let Zal and Rustum bluster as they will, Or Hatim call to ...
— Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam • Omar Khayyam

... despot. Chivalric deference to woman, and a disposition to protect and honor her, is a necessary element of a manly character in our Western civilization; but young Haldane was as truly an Oriental as if he had been permitted to bluster around a Turkish harem; and those whom he should have learned to wait upon with delicacy and tact became subservient to his varying moods, developing that essential brutality which mars the nature of every man who looks upon ...
— A Knight Of The Nineteenth Century • E. P. Roe

... fertility of Rabelais' spirit most obviously shows itself. His book is an orgy of words; they pour out helter-skelter, wildly, into swirling sentences and huge catalogues that, in serried columns, overflow the page. Not quite wildly, though; for, amid all the rush and bluster, there is a powerful underlying art. The rhythms of this extraordinary prose are long and complex, but they exist; and they are controlled with the ...
— Landmarks in French Literature • G. Lytton Strachey

... feeding side by side; low-jointed cottages, with long, sloping roofs greened over with moss or grass, and other objects usually shadowed dimly in the background of the picture. It is these quiet hamlets and houses in the still depths of the country, away from the noise and bluster of railway life and motion, that best represent and perpetuate the primeval characteristics of a nation. These the American traveller will find invested with all the old charm with which his fancy clothed them. It will well repay him for a month's walk ...
— A Walk from London to John O'Groat's • Elihu Burritt

... mere lieutenant, yet he never consulted anyone about taking me in. Was I not an American? Each day some officer was told off to arrange matters with the station masters. They moved their trains without bluff or bluster. Sometimes the Soviets hindered them in order to get what guns and supplies they could. But not till weeks after they started did any Soviet have the temerity to try to stop or disarm the men. The Russian masses were quickly won to friendship for the Czechs and ...
— World's War Events, Volume III • Various

... unseemly bluster?" he began. . . . "Your lordships' pardon—I will open instantly," and hurried to ...
— Beatrix of Clare • John Reed Scott

... a second time, so I will say no more. The paper is in the hands of my notary, and if a single day passes without his seeing me he has orders to break the seal and make the contents public. So you see chance is still on my side. But now that you are warned there is no need for me to bluster. I am quite prepared to acknowledge your superior rank, and if you insist upon it, to speak to ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - LA CONSTANTIN—1660 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE

... easiest you ever saw. Never had any trouble with the sheep outfits—but just the same, there ain't a sheep-man south of the river that would care to try to put anything over on him—nor no one else, neither. There ain't any bluff an' bluster about him, he's the quietest hand you ever saw. But, somehow, lookin' into them eyes of his—a man just naturally ...
— Prairie Flowers • James B. Hendryx

... "He tried to bluster out of it, but I described to him so exactly what his actions had been upon that morning that he is convinced that I was watching him. Of course you observed the peculiarly square toes in the impressions, and that his own boots exactly ...
— Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

... of color that flowed into his bronzed cheeks and the strange, jubilant light in his eyes. She only knew that she was warm and full-fed, and the wind would bluster and threaten around her cabin ...
— The Snowshoe Trail • Edison Marshall

... Galatians," to be sure, I say was, because one never sees it now-a-days, though fifty years ago, under the one designation or the other, it was played annually by the Hogmanay guizards, who, dressed for the occasion, set it forth with deliciously unsophisticated swagger and bluster in every house they visited that had a kitchen floor broad and wide enough for the operation. It formed the material of a chap-book which was regularly on sale at the "Johnnie-a'-thing" shops in the middle of last century, though now, I suppose, a copy could scarcely be had for love or money. Sir ...
— Children's Rhymes, Children's Games, Children's Songs, Children's Stories - A Book for Bairns and Big Folk • Robert Ford

... possible, he asked, for him to have foreseen the Russian character, or have foretold their heroic sacrifice of Moscow, for which doubtless he himself would catch the blame? So now, if his allies stood firm, he would have another great army, and still conquer. Not all this was bluster, for his figures were in the main correct. Moreover, Russia's strength was steadily diminishing, a fact of which he was dimly aware. Of Kutusoff's two hundred thousand men only forty thousand remained when he entered Vilna after the Napoleonic forces had ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. III. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane

... O sweeter than the berry! O nymph more bright Than moonshine night, Like kidlings blithe and merry! Ripe as the melting cluster! No lily has such lustre; Yet hard to tame As raging flame, And fierce as storms that bluster! ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy

... Carson Davenport could bluster, but at heart he was more or less of a coward. He tried to retreat, and as Jack's father followed him up he mumbled some words about there being a mistake and that he had not meant to say just ...
— The Rover Boys in the Land of Luck - Stirring Adventures in the Oil Fields • Edward Stratemeyer

... night, The varying look, the wandering appetite; The joy assumed, while sorrow dimm'd the eyes, The forced sad smiles that follow'd sudden sighs; And every art, long used, but used in vain, To hide thy progress, Nature, and thy pain. Too eager caution shows some danger's near, The bully's bluster proves the coward's fear; His sober step the drunkard vainly tries, And nymphs expose the failings they disguise. First, whispering gossips were in parties seen, Then louder Scandal walk'd the village—green; Next babbling Folly told the growing ill, And busy Malice dropp'd ...
— The Parish Register • George Crabbe

... visibly nervous. He was pale. His voice was neither strong nor clear. He appeared to be deeply affected by the epochal and awesome character of his task. His distinguished audience listened in profound silence as he stated America's case without bluster and without rancor. The burden of his address was a request that the House and Senate recognize that Germany had been making war on the United States and that they agree to his recommendations, which included ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume VI (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various

... open-mouthed—amazed. How did she know all this? It made strange music in his ears, for, in spite of all his bluster, he hungered for praise; for applause. Pearl's words fell like a shower ...
— Purple Springs • Nellie L. McClung

... if anybody is a mind to contest your claims. I've filed a contest on this eighty, here, and I'm going to hold it. Let that soak into your minds. I don't want any trouble—I'm even willing to take a good deal in the way of bluster, rather than have trouble. But I'm going to stay. See?" He waved his pipe in a gesture of finality and continued to smoke and to watch them impersonally, leaning against the door in that lounging negligence which is ...
— The Flying U's Last Stand • B. M. Bower

... ephemera still suck a little spiritual moisture. In another it led to the sacramental and sacerdotal developments of Anglicanism. In a third, among men with strong practical energy, to the benevolent bluster of a sort of Christianity which is called muscular because it is not intellectual. It would be an error to suppose that these and the other streams that have sprung from the same source, did not in the days of their fulness fertilise and gladden many lands. The ...
— Critical Miscellanies, Vol. I - Essay 2: Carlyle • John Morley

... of worry and bluster across the North Sea we have a little forgotten India in our calculations. As Germany faces round eastward again, as she must do before very long, we shall find India resuming its former central position in our ideas of international politics. With India we may pursue one of ...
— An Englishman Looks at the World • H. G. Wells

... said Cleek, as he rose to his feet and shut a tight hand upon the collar of the manacled doctor; "got you, you dogs, and your little game is up. Oh, you needn't bluster, doctor; you needn't come the outraged innocence, Colonel. You'll, neither of you, bolster up the rascally claim of your worthy confederate, the Tackbun Claimant; and your game with the X-rays, your devil's trick of rotting away a man's arm to destroy tattooed evidence of a rank imposter's guilt ...
— Cleek, the Master Detective • Thomas W. Hanshew

... elements were beyond our control, there was no telling when relief would come. Until the weather moderated in the hills to the west, there was no hope of crossing the river; but men grew hungry and nights were chilly, and bluster and bravado brought neither food nor warmth. A third wave was noticed within an hour, raising the water-gauge over a foot. The South Fork of the Big Cheyenne almost encircled the entire Black Hills country, and with a hundred mountain affluents emptying in their tribute, the waters commanded ...
— The Outlet • Andy Adams

... hair's-breadth from the path he had marked out, took leave of his mother, and a formal farewell of the gentleman who described himself as the best of fathers. Beecot senior, turkey-cock and tyrant, was more subdued now that he found bluster would not carry his point. But the wave of common-sense came too late. Paul departed bag and baggage, and his sire swore to the empty air. Even Mrs. Beecot was not available, ...
— The Opal Serpent • Fergus Hume

... to grab a bit of Egypt, but his bluster is unsuccessful. Under pressure he retires, ...
— Supplement to "Punch", 16th December 1914 - The Unspeakable Turk • Various

... are doing little but eat and drink and shout and bluster," Mr. Adams answered. "We are being entertained here with meats and curds and custards and jellies and tarts and floating islands and Madeira wine. It is for you to induce the people of Philadelphia to begin to save. We need to ...
— In the Days of Poor Richard • Irving Bacheller

... another matter. That was nature. A man, with all of his bluster, cannot get away from nature. Don't the winters freeze and kill him? Doesn't water drown him, fire burn him? Love had no place in nature; hatred was a part of the one law, the primal law. The wolf kills the rabbit in hot rage; the black ant tears down the soft-bodied caterpillar ...
— Wolf Breed • Jackson Gregory

... to it which thrilled all States, South or North, outside South Carolina, had set the seal to Webster's doctrines. There had been loud and ominous talk of secession lately; it was certainly not mere bluster; Northerners in the main were cautious politicians and had been tempted to go far to conciliate it. But if the claim of Southern States were put in practice, the whole North would now regard it not as a respectable claim, ...
— Abraham Lincoln • Lord Charnwood

... Whitecraft had now gained a complete ascendancy over the disposition and passions of her father. The latter, like many another country squire—especially of that day—when his word and will were law to his tenants and dependants, was a very great man indeed, when dealing with them. He could bluster and threaten, and even carry his threats into execution with a confident swagger that had more of magisterial pride and the pomp of property in it, than a sense of either light or justice. But, on the other hand, let him meet a man of his own rank, ...
— Willy Reilly - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton

... he was far from being the pugnacious person whom many of his later critics insisted that he was. Having given ample proof to the frontiersmen that he had no fear, he resolutely kept the peace with them, and they had no desire to break peace with him. Bluster and swagger were foreign to his nature, and he loathed a bully as much as a coward. If we had not already had the record of his. three years in the Legislature, in which he surprised his friends by his wonderful talent for mixing with all sorts ...
— Theodore Roosevelt; An Intimate Biography, • William Roscoe Thayer

... try to grab you?" asked Bumpus, with a tremor in his voice that he tried in vain to conceal by a great show of assumed bluster. ...
— The, Boy Scouts on Sturgeon Island - or Marooned Among the Game-fish Poachers • Herbert Carter

... brave to cover shame wi' bitter words, Tam Lorrigan. 'Tis the way of ye to bluster and bully until the neighbors all are affrighted to face ye ...
— Rim o' the World • B. M. Bower

... bluster, and now that he had got himself in hand again his fierce eyes and his low, hissing voice thrilled the girl as his threats had not thrilled her. This time he allowed her to rise, which she did, tottering slightly. She had forgotten about paying for her tea, but the dollar ...
— The Lion's Mouse • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson

... my thought this ideal. These quiet ships lying in the river have no suggestion of bluster about them—no intimation of aggression. They are commanded by men thoughtful of the duty of citizens as well as the duty of officers—men acquainted with the traditions of the great service to which they belong—men who know by touch with the people of the United States what sort ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 3, June, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various

... nor spinach. You owe me three hundred pounds, you've owed it me for years, and you have the impudence to take this attitude with me, have you? Now, I never bluster; I say what I mean. You just listen to me. Either you pay me what you owe me at once, or I call this meeting and make what I know public. You'll very soon find out where you are. And a good thing, too, for a more ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... Constitution, the national ensign, and its martial defenders, seriously entered into the military movements, as they saw in the exercise of the war power the long desired panacea for the faults of slavery. Those who had jeered at the Southern threats of disunion as empty bluster, and at the Northern conservatives as cowardly doughfaces, became zealous Union men, although it must be confessed that very few of them took their lives in their hands and actually went to the front. The raising of troops went forward with a bound, and the wildest excitement ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore

... himself a peer of France. When one thinks of that little Popinot,—ah, mon Dieu! I forgot to tell you that Monsieur Popinot was named minister of commerce yesterday. Why shouldn't I be ambitious too? Ha! ha! I could easily pick up the jargon of those fellows who talk in the chamber, and bluster with the rest of ...
— Parisians in the Country - The Illustrious Gaudissart, and The Muse of the Department • Honore de Balzac

... tell them, and then they began to threaten and bluster. I was beginning to get frightened, but I made up my mind I wouldn't give in to them. And then—well, you came along, and I guess I never was so glad to see you, Jack! But, of course, they really did me no harm. How did it happen that you got ...
— Jack of the Pony Express • Frank V. Webster

... 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 keep, being ...
— The Roman and the Teuton - A Series of Lectures delivered before the University of Cambridge • Charles Kingsley

... at last become Tired of long waiting, and of sitting dumb Upon his charger; so with greenest leer He vented his impatience in a sneer. "Is this," he said, "the glorious Table Round, And is its glory naught but empty sound? Braggarts! I put your bluster to the test, And find you quail before a merry jest!" Then the great king himself stood up in ire, With clenched hand raised, and eyes that gleamed dark fire, And fronting the Green Knight he cried: "Forbear! For by my sword Excalibur ...
— Gawayne And The Green Knight - A Fairy Tale • Charlton Miner Lewis

... cross," all loathing 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 from the ...
— The Three Brides, Love in a Cottage, and Other Tales • Francis A. Durivage

... (68) first served this Rump in with mustard - The sauce was a compound of courage and custard; Sir Vane bless'd the creature, Noll snuffled and bluster'd, Which no body ...
— Cavalier Songs and Ballads of England from 1642 to 1684 • Charles Mackay

... and with many pauses and much bluster, and still behind him came other bulls, snarling ferociously and uttering their uncanny challenges. Sheeta's yellow-green eyes glared terribly at Tarzan, and past Tarzan they shot brief glances at the apes of Kerchak advancing upon him. Discretion prompted him to turn and flee, but hunger and ...
— Jungle Tales of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... the Davis type don't bluster, my boy. They are to meet at Montgomery, Alabama, on February fourth. They'll organize the Cotton States into a Southern Confederacy. If they can win Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee and Arkansas, they may gobble Maryland, Kentucky, and Missouri—all ...
— The Victim - A romance of the Real Jefferson Davis • Thomas Dixon

... the first really fine spring day they had had in this section. Until now, the spring had done its work under rain and bluster; and now, when it had all of a sudden become fine weather, the people were filled with such a longing after summer warmth and green woods that they could hardly perform their tasks. And when the wild geese rode by, high above the ground, ...
— The Wonderful Adventures of Nils • Selma Lagerlof

... then an old book on logic, and then he hesitated and looked up at the shelf. All were dear to him, these thumbed and dingy books; many a time at midnight had they supped with him beside the fire of muttering white-oak coals, and out into the wild bluster of a storm had they driven care and loneliness. But he could not take them all. Painfully he made his selections, nearly filled his bag, leaving barely room for an old satin waistcoat and two shirts; and these he stuffed in hastily. He put the bag upon the bed, when with fumbling ...
— An Arkansas Planter • Opie Percival Read

... a quarter of a century to go to war with her to-day. It would cost us fifty thousand lives. We would need an army of two hundred and fifty thousand men. Where is all that to come from? Can we transport our army there in time? But had all this bluster ceased, then we could have deferred this war with Mexico; could have bought with coin what now will cost us blood; and we could also have bought Oregon without the cost of either coin or blood. Delay was what we needed! All of Oregon should ...
— 54-40 or Fight • Emerson Hough

... pod, let the tempest break its heart into pieces, scattering thunders. Stop your bluster of dispraise and of self-praise, And with the calm of silent prayer on your foreheads sail ...
— Fruit-Gathering • Rabindranath Tagore

... No calling the man down; no bluster," whispered Greg as the candidates again walked along ...
— Dick Prescott's First Year at West Point • H. Irving Hancock

... whole game was as obvious and real to him as if he had assured himself of its truth. He staggered to his feet. He felt the hand of ruin upon him. He believed that while he had been perfecting his crime he had been quietly overreached. He lost his self-command, and gave himself up to profanity and bluster, at ...
— Sevenoaks • J. G. Holland

... ever become anything 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 ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver

... cares for anything but the show and bluster which are threatening our ruin? English food, not long ago the best in the world, is falling off in quality, and even our national genius for cooking shows a decline; to anyone who knows England, these are facts significant enough. Foolish persons have prated about "our ...
— The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft • George Gissing

... 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, Edited by Birkbeck Hill

... bluster, the building and destruction, the teasing and torture so often perpetrated by the boy. He is saying that he is here and must be reckoned with, and he wishes to make his presence as significant as possible. If home, school, and community conditions are such as to give ...
— The Minister and the Boy • Allan Hoben

... bending forward, fixed upon him a look that seemed to read his very soul. It was a proverb with the crew of the Arizona that "no rogue could ever face the old man's eye;" and although he was never known to utter an oath or unseemly word, his very glance had more effect than any amount of bluster and bullying. ...
— Harper's Young People, April 6, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various

... and other sexual subjects, we may do whatever else we like: we may bully, we may bluster, we may rage, We may foam at the mouth; we may tear down Heaven with our prayers, we may exhaust ourselves with weeping over the sorrows of the poor; we may narcotize ourselves and others with the opiate of ...
— The Pivot of Civilization • Margaret Sanger

... uncomfortable. The artist was reasserting the old superiority over him which the visitor had found so irritating, and it was Iron's instinct to meet this by an air of bluster. ...
— The Philistines • Arlo Bates

... to "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 he'll only ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al

... sprang to his feet and began to bluster considerably in Portuguese; but poor Barney seemed awfully crest-fallen, arid the deep concern which wrinkled his face, and the genuine regret that sounded in the tones of his voice, at length soothed ...
— Martin Rattler • Robert Michael Ballantyne

... this was way to one side of the mark-buoy, so fur as I was concerned. I'd cruised with cranks afore and I thought I could stand this one—ten dollars' worth of him, anyhow. Bluster and big talk may scare some folks, but to me they're like Aunt Hepsy Parker's false teeth, the further off you be from 'em the more real they look. So the next mornin' I was up bright and early and on my way over to the ...
— The Depot Master • Joseph C. Lincoln

... understand these things better than we do. They understand each other, and they seem to have a practical way of accepting human nature as it is which we never learn to apply to our fellowmen. They never bluster as we do, nor expect impossibilities from ...
— With Edged Tools • Henry Seton Merriman

... 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, ...
— Raleigh • Edmund Gosse

... bluster could not drive that infantile smile from Hill's face, nor provoke a change in the calm slowness ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy

... effect of manner which implied an impossible subtlety—that the power one saw in the man was produced simply by some trick of pose, by a frankness so big that one felt intuitively there must be still bigger qualities behind it. Whether it was all a bluster of affectation Adams had never as yet decided in his own mind, but there were moments when, in listening to stories of the masculine freedom in which Kemper lived, he felt inclined to acknowledge that the force, whatever it was, had ...
— The Wheel of Life • Ellen Anderson Gholson Glasgow

... 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 a nephew of Mr. Doleman's, (who had a good while been desirous to pass an ...
— Clarissa Harlowe, Volume 9 (of 9) - The History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson

... in the wrong, was a little frightened at the set speech, and began to bluster and stammer, but the swift descent of Malcolm's heavy riding whip on his shoulders and back made him voluble in curses. Then began a battle that could not last long with such odds on the side of justice. It was gazed at from the mouth of the ...
— The Marquis of Lossie • George MacDonald

... retorted Flint, "that if you attempt to leave this room, I will give you into custody at once, and transport you, whatever may be the consequence to others. Come, come, let us have no more nonsense or bluster. We have strong reasons for believing that the story by which you have been extorting money, is a fabrication. If it be so, rely upon it we shall detect and punish you. Your only safe course is to make a clean breast of it whilst there is yet time. Out with it, ...
— The Experiences of a Barrister, and Confessions of an Attorney • Samuel Warren

... reason in nature Can be given of the matter, Any more than for shapes or for different stature? If you love your dear selves, your religion or queen, Ye ought in good manners to be peaceable men: For nothing disgusts her Like making a bluster: And your making this riot, Is what she could cry at, Since all her concern's for our welfare and quiet. I would ask any man Of them all that maintain Their passive obedience With such mighty vehemence, That damn'd doctrine, I trow! What ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift

... meanwhile, the 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 had remorselessly killed and eaten so many hundreds of human ...
— The Great Taboo • Grant Allen

... books of adventure and the like. His favourite author was one writing of Heroes, in (so she esteemed it) a style resembling either early architecture or utter dilapidation, so loose and rough it seemed; a wind-in-the-orchard style, that tumbled down here and there an appreciable fruit with uncouth bluster; sentences without commencements running to abrupt endings and smoke, like waves against a sea-wall, learned dictionary words giving a hand to street-slang, and accents falling on them haphazard, like slant rays from driving clouds; all the pages in a breeze, the whole book producing a kind of ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... at the sight of the boys and seemed about to indulge in his usual bluster, but a thought appeared to come to him suddenly that made him ...
— The Rushton Boys at Treasure Cove - Or, The Missing Chest of Gold • Spencer Davenport

... not fume and bluster. It holds firmly and steadily on its way, and wins by force of its resistless and ...
— Insights and Heresies Pertaining to the Evolution of the Soul • Anna Bishop Scofield

... "Don't bluster, son, or I shall grow peevish," Hood replied tolerantly. "At the present moment I feel like taking a walk under the mystical May stars. The night invites the soul to meditation; the stars may have the answer to all our perplexities. Stop fretting ...
— The Madness of May • Meredith Nicholson

... this fellow merely means to make a little bluster, and try if he can pick up a little money. There is nothing whatever actionable in the paper.... The article on Hazlitt, which will commence next number, will be a most powerful one, and this business will not deprive it of any ...
— A Publisher and His Friends • Samuel Smiles

... 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. ...
— Jimbo - A Fantasy • Algernon Blackwood

... that with only Vaudreuil to lead fighting is hopeless. He knows not his own mind two minutes together; he agrees always with the last speaker. He is always terrified in the moment of real crisis and peril. His bluster and gasconade desert him, and leave ...
— French and English - A Story of the Struggle in America • Evelyn Everett-Green

... apparent result of August's mischief-making, her brother or someone one evening rode up to the cottage, drunk and inclined to bluster. He was accompanied by a friend, also drunk, who came to see the fun, and was ready to use his influence on the winning side. The teacher went inside, brought out his gun, and slipped two cartridges in. "I've had enough of this," he said. "Now then, be off, ...
— Over the Sliprails • Henry Lawson

... every quality, good or evil, at its highest? Here are the rough crust over a kindly heart, the explosive temper, the arrogance, the insular narrowness, the want of sympathy and insight, the rudeness of perception, the positiveness, the overbearing bluster, the strong deep-seated religious principle, and every other characteristic of the cruder, rougher John Bull who was the great grandfather of the present ...
— Through the Magic Door • Arthur Conan Doyle

... retorted with a vast amount of bluster, asking what the devil we meant by turning out ...
— A Gentleman of France • Stanley Weyman

... If Montcornet begins to bluster before his Virginie, Madame lays a finger on her lips and he is silent. He smokes his pipes and his cigars in a kiosk fifty feet from the chateau, and airs himself before he returns to the house. Proud of his subjection, he turns to her, like a bear drunk on grapes, and says, when ...
— Sons of the Soil • Honore de Balzac

... decision, not in the English way of compromise, which is the way of a barbarian and a coward, but like an honest man deciding 'twixt right and wrong. His judgment was wholly in favour of the Abbot of Cluny. The Earl then began to bluster and to attempt to appeal beyond the Pope; he even dared to place armed men at the Priory gate and to stop all communications with Cluny. The Abbot replied by an interdict upon Lewes, and things were in this confusion when the Pope appointed ...
— England of My Heart—Spring • Edward Hutton

... to their superiors; extreme provocation and desperation are necessary. Men flare up easily against equals but more easily and with mingled contempt against the inferior. Anger, though behind the fighting spirit, need not bluster or storm; usually that is a "worked up" condition intended in a naive way to frighten and intimidate, or through disgust, to win a point. Anger is not necessarily courage, which replaces it the higher ...
— The Foundations of Personality • Abraham Myerson

... father 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 on, ...
— A Dozen Ways Of Love • Lily Dougall

... dropped back into his chair with the utmost complacency. This was not the kind of man with whom mere bluster counted. ...
— The Diamond Master • Jacques Futrelle

... bluster and pretension, I was becoming more and more aware that the subtle Kipping could twist him around his little finger, and that for some end of his own Kipping did not wish affairs to come yet ...
— The Mutineers • Charles Boardman Hawes

... 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 ...
— Confessions of an Inquiring Spirit etc. • by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... with a trivial pain, Thy Muse, vain youth! shall not thy peace ensure, Nor Phoebus' serpent yield thy wound a cure.11 He spoke, and, waving a bright shaft in air, Sought the warm bosom of the Cyprian fair. That thus a child should bluster in my ear Provok'd my laughter more than mov'd my fear. 50 I shun'd not, therefore, public haunts, but stray'd Careless in city, or suburban shade, And passing and repassing nymphs that mov'd With grace divine, beheld where'er I rov'd. Bright shone the vernal day, with double blaze, As beauty ...
— Poemata (William Cowper, trans.) • John Milton

... it looked hopeless. Besides, a remnant of pride counselled him to bluster it out rather than run away. He laughed, not very successfully. "Two against one, eh? Wait till fellows hear about it! You won't dare show your faces, you two thugs!" Again his gaze travelled along the empty, sunlit road. "Anyway, I didn't say anything I didn't have a right to say. You asked ...
— Left Tackle Thayer • Ralph Henry Barbour

... the closed door. "Rann's with him now," he replied; "they're having it hot in there. Rann may bluster till he's blue, but he won't make the governor give an inch. That bill's as dead as a door nail. The governor's got a fit of ...
— The Voice of the People • Ellen Glasgow

... "We're speaking of business. And there's sma-all friendship atween me and Gourlay. He was nebby owre a bill I sent in the other day; and I'm getting tired of his bluster. Besides, there's little more to be made of him. Gourlay's bye wi't. But you're a rising man, Mr. Wilson, and I think that you and me might work thegither to our own advantage, don't ye see? Yes; just so; to the ...
— The House with the Green Shutters • George Douglas Brown

... 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 ...
— Tom Swift and his War Tank - or, Doing his Bit for Uncle Sam • Victor Appleton

... to be guided and led into their sensuall lustes 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

... French expression is faisaient leur Achilles, the nearest equivalent to which in English would probably be "Hectoring" It is curious that the French should have taken the name of Achilles and we that of Hector to express the same idea of arrogance and bluster.—Ed. ...
— The Tales Of The Heptameron, Vol. IV. (of V.) • Margaret, Queen Of Navarre

... 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 plan had been arranged between him and Mr. Asquith with regard to the Lords. The ...
— Lloyd George - The Man and His Story • Frank Dilnot

... an oath in the falsetto voice that the weak and the flabby possess and took one step forward. The man at the fire came to his feet and stood erect. He was tall, and the brown eyes talked for him better than threats or bluster. The vagrant shifted his gaze from those eyes and ...
— The Landloper - The Romance Of A Man On Foot • Holman Day

... and bluster the Hundred and thirty-three: nor, as would seem, are these sufficient; for there are benighted nooks in France, to which Newspapers do not reach; and every where is 'such an appetite for news as was never seen in any country.' Let an expeditious Dampmartin, on ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle

... Like foaming cataracts, their bounding track; A devastating flood sweeps o'er the land, Tartarean darkness swathes the sable strand! O'er wolds and hills, o'er ocean's chafing waves The wild tornado's bluster wierdly raves; The white-heat bolt of every thundering roar The pitchy zenith coruscating o'er; The vast expanse of heaven pours forth its ire 'Mid swarthy fogs streaked with ...
— The Poetry of Wales • John Jenkins

... of sense," it was declared, "could for a moment doubt that this much-ado-about-nothing would end in a month. The Northern people are simply invincible. The rebels, a mere band of ragamuffins, will fly like chaff before the wind on our approach." Thus the wretched farces of bluster continued on either side until in blood, agony, and heartbreak, ...
— The Earth Trembled • E.P. Roe

... what it says, is worth a little talk: the Heroism and Patriotism of a new generation; welling fresh and new from the breasts of Nature; and already poisoned by O'Connellism and the Old Irish atmosphere of bluster, falsity, fatuity, into one knows not what. Very sad to see. On the whole, no man ought, for any cause, to speak lies, or have anything to do with lies; but either hold his tongue, or speak a bit of the truth: that is the meaning ...
— The Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1834-1872, Vol II. • Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson

... who can fight when he has to," said Dolly, stoutly. "I haven't any use for sissies, and I think that's all Jake really is, for all his bluster." ...
— The Camp Fire Girls on the Farm - Or, Bessie King's New Chum • Jane L. Stewart

... saved England from the indelible disgrace of a second and more gratuitous Crimea. But it was not only in Eastern Europe that his saving influence was felt. In Africa and India, and wherever British honor was involved, he was the resolute and unsparing enemy of that odious system of bluster and swagger and might against right, on which Lord Beaconsfield and his colleagues bestowed the tawdry ...
— The Grand Old Man • Richard B. Cook

... not, will never be made. The fines have nothing to say to this war; in any reasonably governed country they should never have figured in the treaty; they had been inflicted before, and were due before. Before the rebellion began, the beach had rung with I know not what indiscreet bluster; the natives were to be read a lesson; Tamasese (by name) was to be hanged; and after what had been done to Mataafa, I was so innocent as to listen with awe. And now the rebellion has come, and this was the punishment! ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... O best of monarchs, add, to crown Thy bounty to the Dardans,—one, beside These many, nor let bluster bear thee down. A worthy husband for thy child provide, And peace shall with the lasting pact abide. Else, if such terror doth our souls enslave, Him now, in hope to turn away his pride, Him let us pray his proper right to waive, And, pitying, deign to yield what king ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil - Translated into English Verse by E. Fairfax Taylor • Virgil

... on Kenton's tongue to say that it was a good thing for him Dick was not there. But partly the sense that this would be unbecoming bluster, and partly the suffocating resentment of the fellow's impudence, limited his response to a formless gasp, and Bittridge went on: "But I'm glad to find you here, judge. I didn't know that you were in town. Family ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... had experience, a government which relying for its existence on the aid of an external power finds in its very feebleness support for tyranny. Murmurs are already heard of armed resistance. These mutterings, we are told, are nothing but bluster. It is at any rate that sort of "bluster" at which the justice and humanity of a loyal Englishman must take alarm. I have not yet learnt to look without horror on the possibility of civil war, nor to picture ...
— A Leap in the Dark - A Criticism of the Principles of Home Rule as Illustrated by the - Bill of 1893 • A.V. Dicey

... this bluster, Hymen. I've cornered you, and you know it. The flares in the offing yonder came from two preventive boats. Back-door and front I have you, as neat as a rat in a drain; so you may just turn that lantern of yours on the cargo, own up, ...
— The Mayor of Troy • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... 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 ...
— Political Thought in England from Locke to Bentham • Harold J. Laski

... spoke, bringing back his confidence with a bluster. "Morano has sold his soul to Satan," he said, "in exchange for Satan's aid, and Satan has taught his tongue Latin and guides his fingers in the affairs of the pen." And so said all la Garda, rejoicing at finding ...
— Don Rodriguez - Chronicles of Shadow Valley • Edward John Moreton Drax Plunkett, Baron, Dunsany

... did not bring back Knowles, with his unwieldy heat and bluster. He found a flavor and meaning in the least of these hints of mine, gloating over the largess given and received in the world, for which money had no value. His bones used to straighten, and his eye glitter under the flabby ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 103, May, 1866 • Various

... of will, his fiery words do lend some confirmation, which he assuredly never intended, to the Prussian ideal of a State. Nietzsche was too much averse from politics to intend such an application of his teaching, which is essentially individualistic, and he had nothing but contempt for the bluster and philistinism of the Prussian State in particular. We must admit, however, that in this unintentional way he contributed to the formation of that German temper which led to the war. General von Bernhardi's admiring references to ...
— The War and the Churches • Joseph McCabe

... there. "The 'plunging prelate and his ponderous Grace'; my lord George, the 'bold baker,' and Mr. Unwell; Sir Xenophon Sunflower, the Assassin, and the flash grazier; the Dollar, hellite, billiard-marker, and bacon-factor; the ringletted O'Bluster, double-jointed publican, Leather lungs, and Handsome Jack contrasted in the pig's skin; and, ye Centaurs! what seats were there!" It must have been a sight for proper men to see. Not the veriest tailor would walk on Derby day. He "would mount a mis-teached hippogriff, and risk the chance of ...
— Highways and Byways in Surrey • Eric Parker

... winter after the Ladybrig murder, our fancies and the wind together played Eleanor and me sad tricks. When once we began to listen we seemed to hear a whole tragedy going on close outside. We could distinguish footsteps and voices through the bluster, and then a struggle in the shrubbery, and a thud, and a groan, and then a roar of wind, half drowning the sound of flying footsteps—and then an awful pause, and at last faint groaning, and a bump, as of some poor wounded body falling against the house. At ...
— Six to Sixteen - A Story for Girls • Juliana Horatia Ewing

... downcast, though the midshipmen did their best to keep up her spirits by telling her that they were sure the Spaniards would not dare to hurt her or any of us, let them bluster and threaten as ...
— The Three Lieutenants • W.H.G. Kingston

... 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 of a ...
— Against The Grain • Joris-Karl Huysmans

... occupants to think of him as they would; even as, ten years ago, he had fled from the shame impending over him at Kingsmill. A cowardly instinct, this; having once acted upon it gave to his whole life a taint of craven meanness. Mere bluster, all his talk of mental dignity and uncompromising scorn of superstitions. A weak and idle man, whose best years were ...
— Born in Exile • George Gissing

... pretending to kiss her. Babbitt had so strong an impulse to go to Paul that he could feel his body uncoiling, his shoulders moving, but he felt, desperately, that he must be diplomatic, and not till he saw Paul paying the check did he bluster to the piano-salesman, "By golly-friend of mine over there—'scuse me second—just say ...
— Babbitt • Sinclair Lewis

... Winter, come not here, Bluster in thy proper sphere; Howl along the naked plain; There exert they joyless reign. Triumph o'er the wither'd flow'r, The leafless shrub, the ruin'd bower; But our cottage come not near, Other Springs inhabit here, Other sunshine decks our board Than they niggard skies afford. ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 183, April 30, 1853 • Various

... the demand was made, the States government yielded at once, and yielded without bluster. I cannot say I much admired Mr. Seward's long letter. It was full of smart special pleading, and savored strongly, as Mr. Seward's productions always do, of the personal author. Mr. Seward was making an effort to place a great State paper on record, but the ars celare artem was ...
— Volume 2 • Anthony Trollope

... 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 of raging snow-storms. The cavalry troops, officers and men, ...
— The Deserter • Charles King

... prestige of money, family, education, and that indefinable grace and courtesy of body and soul that we call charm. And Harvey people seemed to be made for him. He liked their candor, their strength, their crass materialism, their bray and bluster, their vain protests of democracy and their unconscious regard for his caste and culture. So whatever there was of egoism in his nature grew unchecked by Harvey. He was the young lord of the manor. However Harvey might ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White

... 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 ...
— 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue • Captain Grose et al.

... come back because the road was believed to be dangerous, there was no secure resting-place, and the authorities could not guarantee my safety. Imagine a Chinese in a Western country acting with the bluster that I did, although in good humour; I wonder whether he would be treated with the courtesy that those Chinamen showed ...
— An Australian in China - Being the Narrative of a Quiet Journey Across China to Burma • George Ernest Morrison

... d——d Yankee," said the planter. "You're welcome to your opinion, old Blowhard," responded Lemon. "This is a free country; I am a Yankee—all but the d——d—and now what do you propose to do about it?" (All this in an assumed tone of bluster, as the best adapted to the situation.) "We'll see! we'll see!" rejoined the planter, and at once started in a direct line for his house. Lemon lost no time, but returned as quickly as possible to his comrade, and without any deliberation they evacuated the enemy's country with as much expedition ...
— Sword and Pen - Ventures and Adventures of Willard Glazier • John Algernon Owens

... over-harshly. His first impressions of people—he had had occasion to deplore the fact before now—were apt to be either dead white or black as ink; the web of his mind took on no half tints. The boy had not betrayed any actual vices; and time might be trusted to knock the bluster out of him. With this reflection Mahony dismissed Ned from his mind. He had more important things to think of, chief among which was his own state with regard to Ned's sister. And during the fortnight that followed he went about making believe to weigh this matter, to view ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson

... a minute. You don't give me a chance, Sissy. You play faster for me than for anybody else! You do it a-purpose, too, just 'cause you know it's easy to bluster me. ...
— The Madigans • Miriam Michelson

... towards the door by which Nikta entered the hut] Well, have you had enough spree? You've been puffing yourself up, but now you'll know how it feels! You'll lose some of your bluster! ...
— The Power of Darkness • Leo Tolstoy

... drawn apart from the others, resentful of the distrust that Taterleg had shown, but more than half of his courage and bluster taken away from him with his gun. He was swearing more volubly than ever to cover his other deficiencies; but he was a man to be feared only when he had his weapon ...
— The Duke Of Chimney Butte • G. W. Ogden

... dwell apart from men; he was a part of men. "The Mystic" is an admirable conception of the soul, living remote from society and action, seeing our world as through a smoke. Mysticism has its truth and power. Many of us bluster and do, and do not stand apart and dwell ...
— A Hero and Some Other Folks • William A. Quayle

... the offensive. The others were not so optimistic. But neither here, nor in any of the conversations I have heard at the headquarters of the Allies, was there a doubt expressed as to ultimate victory. They had a quiet confidence that was contagious. There was no bluster, no assertion; victory was simply accepted as a fact; the only two opinions might be as to when it would occur, and whether the end would be sudden or a slow withdrawal of the ...
— Kings, Queens And Pawns - An American Woman at the Front • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... this an exceptional case. Of course there are ingenious arguments, but there is much more of loud bluster about the danger of the Republic. But, you see, no opposition could prevent the assembly from being prorogued, and a certain powerful influence rightly applied during the next three days might determine ...
— Romola • George Eliot



Words linked to "Bluster" :   act, overdraw, exaggerate, swagger, flash, gas, hyperbolise, rhodomontade, boasting, hyperbolize, shoot a line, blast, triumph, do, brag, boast, puff, blustery, gust, blusterer, vaunt, self-praise, swash, blusterous, tout, magnify, crow, blow, overstate, fanfare



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