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Bluster   /blˈəstər/   Listen
Bluster

noun
1.
Noisy confusion and turbulence.
2.
A swaggering show of courage.  Synonym: bravado.
3.
A violent gusty wind.
4.
Vain and empty boasting.  Synonyms: braggadocio, rhodomontade, rodomontade.



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"Bluster" Quotes from Famous Books



... you not to expect plain sailing?" she continued with a knowing look; "and Ada Irvine is a perfect hurricane. She will swoop down on you at every opportunity, and bluster and blow; but let her alone and ...
— Aunt Judith - The Story of a Loving Life • Grace Beaumont

... him that he had been so long fighting Indians on the frontier that he had acquired some of their traits and habits. His system of discipline was based on these peculiarities. He aimed at a stoical command of himself as the means of commanding others, and avoided noisy bluster of every sort, going, perhaps, to an excess in brevity of speech and in enforcing his orders by the consequences of any disobedience. His subordinates recognized his purpose to be just, and soon learned to have the greatest confidence in him as a military officer. Unless ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V1 • Jacob Dolson Cox

... had well 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 ...
— Raleigh • Edmund Gosse

... older dogs. The time had passed, he continued, for speeches and resolutions and votes of censure. Dogs must act if Man, the enemy, was to be finally crushed. I intervened at this point and told the Borzoi he must moderate his language, upon which he began to bluster, shouting that he would not be put down by an arrogant hireling of effete Militarism. One learns to practise self-control in the trenches, so I was able to repress an inclination to assert my authority then and there. It was no use striking at man himself, he went ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Jan. 29, 1919 • Various

... who would 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 Lever - A Novel • William Dana Orcutt

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

... 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

... the younger man blankly, "what a ridiculous old humbug it is! And how he used to frighten me in the old days with his confounded cavalry bluster! I rather think I will look him up: and I'll dine with him three times a week if he likes. Meanwhile, it's time for me to go and meet old Rainham, and take him round to Brodonowski's. What a ...
— A Comedy of Masks - A Novel • Ernest Dowson and Arthur Moore

... caught in that whirling surge, Shot sheer to their dismal doom: Keel and mast only did ever emerge, Shattered, from out the all-gulping tomb!— Like the bluster of tempest, clearer and clearer, Comes its roaring nearer and ...
— Rampolli • George MacDonald

... speeches? If you have not a copy I advise you to buy one; they will soon be out of print, and you will not have many more of the same sort. [Laughter and applause.] They are full of the glitter and bluster of German militarism—"mailed fist," and "shining armor." Poor old mailed fist! Its knuckles are getting a little bruised. Poor shining armor! The shine is being knocked out of it. [Applause.] There is the same swagger ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War from the Beginning to March 1915, Vol 1, No. 2 - Who Began the War, and Why? • Various

... began the old man, between bluster and whine, "I talked about them chaps to the superintendent of yo' mill, an' you-all said you didn't want none of that size. And one o' yo' men—he was a room boss, I reckon—spoke up right sassy to me—as sassy as Johnnie Consadine herself, ...
— The Power and the Glory • Grace MacGowan Cooke

... 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 ...
— A Little Book of Profitable Tales • Eugene Field

... 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

... 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, ...
— Sons of the Soil • Honore de Balzac

... arms are only constituted proportionately to their throats, they must do good fighting. I should think nothing would stand before them. Daisy, they will certainly bear down all opposition. Are you afraid? Here is the Fourth, and Washington safe yet, for all the Southern bluster." ...
— Daisy in the Field • Elizabeth Wetherell

... sense, as the salesmen themselves use it, to cover all the people who are trying to convince some one else that what they have is worth while whether it is an idea or a washing machine or a packet of drawings)—there is a certain rough type of salesman who tries to bluster his way through. He never lasts long as a salesman, though unfortunately he survives a good many years in various kinds of business. Even he must ...
— The Book of Business Etiquette • Nella Henney

... nearer; and his words came, now, in answer to the unfinished threat with cutting force. "What would you do, you big, hulking swine? You can bully a weakling not half your size; you can beat a helpless incompetent like a dog; you can bluster, and threaten a tenderfoot when you think he fears you; you can attack a man with a loaded quirt when you think him unable to defend himself;—show me what you can ...
— When A Man's A Man • Harold Bell Wright

... reply with considerable force, whether you appeal to the mind or the heart of the prospect. But when his objection is stated in a powerless tone, even though it may be accompanied by curtness or bluster, you need not waste much force on your answering appeal to ...
— Certain Success • Norval A. Hawkins

... politicians began to bluster like the season. Late one afternoon he was on his way to the office with a cartoon, the first in which he had seriously to attack Clayton. Benson, the managing editor of the Telegraph, had conceived it, and ...
— Americans All - Stories of American Life of To-Day • Various

... 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, ...
— The Ape, the Idiot & Other People • W. C. Morrow

... 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 ...
— Love and Lucy • Maurice Henry Hewlett

... 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

... watched her 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 ...
— Purple Springs • Nellie L. McClung

... pursuers dismounted and started forward, only to stop short. A scream had come to them, faint in the bluster of the storm, the racking scream of a woman in a tempest of anger. Suddenly the light seemed to bob about in the old house; it showed first at one window—then another—as though some one were running from room to room. Once two ...
— The Cross-Cut • Courtney Ryley Cooper

... 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

... 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

... 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 so irritating to ...
— The Flying U's Last Stand • B. M. Bower

... 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, ...
— The Victim - A romance of the Real Jefferson Davis • Thomas Dixon

... however, could no longer be quieted. Through all the rhetoric, sophistry, and bluster of the conspirators he saw the diminishing resources of the Government and the rising power of the insurrection. With a last bold effort to rouse the President from his lethargy, he demanded, in the Cabinet meeting of the 13th, that the forts should be strengthened. But ...
— Abraham Lincoln, A History, Volume 2 • John George Nicolay and John Hay

... (stroke) bato. Blow blovi. Blouse kitelo. Blow (of flowers) ekflori. Bludgeon bastonego. Blue blua. Bluish dubeblua. Blunder erarego. Blunt malakra. Blunt (mannered) malafabla. Blur malpurigi. Blush rugxigxi. Bluster fanfaroni. Boa boao. Boar porkviro. Board (food) nutrado—ajxo. Board (plank) tabulo. Board logxi. Boarder (house) logxanto. Boarder (school) edukato. Boarding school edukejo. Boarding-house logxantejo. Boast fanfaroni. Boast fanfarono. Boaster fanfaronulo. ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes

... correct. "I don't think that you quite put strength enough into your blame on one side, while you make at least enough of minor faults or eccentricities. To me it seems always that Whitman's great flaw is a fault of debility, not an excess of strength—I mean his bluster. His own personal and national self-reliance and arrogance, I need not tell you, I applaud, and sympathise and rejoice in; but the blatant ebullience of feeling and speech, at times, is feeble for so great a poet of so great a people. He is in part certainly the ...
— Poems By Walt Whitman • Walt Whitman

... of Voltaire the heroes of poetry and drama were fine gentlemen; in the days of Victor Hugo they bluster about in velvet and mustachios and gold chains, but they seem in nowise more poetical than their ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall

... years 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 ...
— An Englishman Looks at the World • H. G. Wells

... enough to try to outdo the newcomers, and degraded the quiet dignity of their patriarchal manner of life by speculations on the Stock Exchange. The intelligent middle classes, whose eyes and ears were filled with this bluster of the gold-orgy, found that their former way of living had now grown uncomfortable, their houses were too small, their bread too dry, their beer too common and their views of life began to climb upward in a measure which, whether they were willing ...
— The Malady of the Century • Max Nordau

... with the quiet sternness more formidable than all his bluster, "have not I forbidden you ...
— A Perilous Secret • Charles Reade

... which he delivered this speech had an almost magical effect upon the jealous Latin. His bluster sank suddenly and died. Muttering to himself and staring at Berry as at a wizard, he seized the girl by the arm and started to move rapidly away, wide-eyed and ill at ease.... With suppressed excitement and the tail of my eye, I watched him bear down ...
— Berry And Co. • Dornford Yates

... that he was going to run in?" said Gymbert, trying to bluster. "He crossed my horse, and it is his own fault if he was in ...
— A King's Comrade - A Story of Old Hereford • Charles Whistler

... Mohegans from field to field, and from hut to hut, till they had thoroughly informed themselves of their numbers, condition, and prospects. The opposition they encountered, the ridicule and opprobrium showered upon them from certain quarters, the sullenness of the natives, the bluster of the white tenants, the brushwood and dry branches thrown across their pathway, could not discourage them. They saw no 'lions in the way,' while mercy, with pleading looks, ...
— Woman on the American Frontier • William Worthington Fowler

... tomahawk of the entire equipment which he himself did not examine—not a rifle which he himself did not personally test. He went over the boxes and bales which had been gathered here, and saw to their arrangement in the transport-wagons. He did all this without bluster or officiousness, but with the quiet care and thoroughness of the natural leader ...
— The Magnificent Adventure - Being the Story of the World's Greatest Exploration and - the Romance of a Very Gallant Gentleman • Emerson Hough

... 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 plan was ...
— Lloyd George - The Man and His Story • Frank Dilnot

... was looking intently. As soon as the tones of O'Shea's voice were carried away by the bluster of the wind, as far as the human beings there were concerned there was perfect stillness; the surf and the wind might have been sweeping ...
— The Mermaid - A Love Tale • Lily Dougall

... answered when their eyes fell on the robbers, who, with leveled pistols, dominated the car. And the threat of the weapons themselves was not more sinister than the purpose that glinted in the ferocious eyes above the improvised masks. There was no mere bluff and bluster in that steady gaze. They were ready to shoot and shoot to kill. Their lives were already forfeit to the law, anyway, and in that rough country they would get "a short shrift and a long rope" if their plans went astray. They might as well be ...
— Bert Wilson in the Rockies • J. W. Duffield

... a nation so in want of a leader; never was it more plain, that, without a head, the people "bluster abroad as beasts," with plenty of the iron of purpose, but purpose without coherence, and with no cunning smith of circumstance to edge it with plan and helve it with direction. What the country was waiting for showed itself in the universal thrill of satisfaction when Major Anderson took the extraordinary ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 44, June, 1861 • Various

... 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

... to me,' said Sir Felix, walking out of the room with much fraternal bluster. Then he went forth, and at once had himself driven to Paul Montague's lodgings. Had Hetta not been foolish enough to remind him of his duty, he would not now have undertaken the task. He too, no doubt, remembered ...
— The Way We Live Now • Anthony Trollope

... (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 ...
— Cavalier Songs and Ballads of England from 1642 to 1684 • Charles Mackay

... "Porton, you can bluster all you please, but it won't do you any good," answered Dave, and his voice had a more positive ring to it than before. "You thought you could play this trick on me and get away with it, but I am going to show you it can't be done. I am going to hand you over to the authorities ...
— Dave Porter and His Double - The Disapperarance of the Basswood Fortune • Edward Stratemeyer

... we were water-bound was too apparent to admit of question, and since the 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 ...
— The Outlet • Andy Adams

... whatever might be his consciousness of strength. The small black eye of Colbert, dilated by envy, and the limpid eye of Louis XIV., inflamed by anger, signalled some pressing danger. Courtiers are, with regard to court rumors, like old soldiers, who distinguish through the blasts of wind and bluster of leaves the sound of the distant steps of an armed troop. They can, after having listened, tell pretty nearly how many men are marching, how many arms resound, how many cannons roll. Fouquet had ...
— Ten Years Later - Chapters 1-104 • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... County man looked at Joe in some surprise. He had expected to frighten the boy with his bluster, but it didn't seem to produce the ...
— Joe's Luck - Always Wide Awake • Horatio Alger, Jr.

... Will it be believed, that after the action of St. Cas—a mere affair of cutting off a rearguard, as you are aware—they were so unfeeling as to fire away I don't know how much powder at the Invalides at Paris, and brag and bluster over our misfortune? Is there any magnanimity in hallooing and huzzaying because five or six hundred brave fellows have been caught by ten thousand on a seashore, and that fate has overtaken them which is said to befall the hindmost? I had a mind to design an authentic picture of ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray

... odd, lovable personality, possessed of so many interesting and peculiar and almost indescribable traits. Of all characters in fiction he perhaps most suggests Jack Falstaff, with his love of women, his bravado and bluster and his innate good nature and sympathy. Sympathy was really his outstanding characteristic, even more than humor, although the latter was always present. One might recite a thousand incidents of his generosity and out-of-hand charity, ...
— Twelve Men • Theodore Dreiser

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

... 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 victims, was himself to fall ...
— The Great Taboo • Grant Allen

... critic As an honest friend: you stroke me on one cheek, Buffet the other. Come, you bluster, Antony! You know I know all this. I must not move Until I hear from Carew and the Duke. I fear the mine ...
— Queen Mary and Harold • Alfred Lord Tennyson

... boys," 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 wrong with him when ...
— The Life of Nancy • Sarah Orne Jewett

... restores A mind that lives for plaudits and encores. Nay, I forswear the drama, if to win Or lose the prize can make me plump or thin. Then too it tries an author's nerve, to find The class in numbers strong, though weak in mind, The brutal brainless mob, who, if a knight Disputes their judgment, bluster and show fight, Call in the middle of a play for bears Or boxers;—'tis for such the rabble cares. But e'en the knights have changed, and now they prize Delighted ears far less than dazzled eyes. The curtain is kept down four hours or more, While ...
— The Satires, Epistles, and Art of Poetry • Horace

... 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 ...
— The Scalp Hunters • Mayne Reid

... 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

... 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 worried Norman if people did ...
— Rainbow Valley • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... 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

... a flurry of bluster and racket, Went crowding and crowding right under his jacket; And it lifted him off from his two little feet, And it carried him bodily over the street. Mike laughed "He-he!" and he laughed "Ho-ho! Do you call this ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, January 1878, No. 3 • Various

... 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 ...
— The Lion's Mouse • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson

... cheek; and the overseer came to where Nicanor stood in chains, and looked at him. He was a very fat man, with little eyes sunk in unwholesome flesh, and was far haughtier than the great lord Eudemius himself. When he saw Nicanor's face, he began unexpectedly to curse and bluster, and said: ...
— Nicanor - Teller of Tales - A Story of Roman Britain • C. Bryson Taylor

... from our captain to the cook's boy. He was such a gallant youngster, and yet so gentle. In one cutting-out business we had, he climbed over the boatswain's shoulder, and was almost first on deck; how he came out of it without a scratch I can't think to this day. But he hadn't a bit of bluster in him, and was as kind as a woman to anyone who was wounded ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes

... 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 at the idea. ...
— The Tinder-Box • Maria Thompson Daviess

... 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 ...
— The Landloper - The Romance Of A Man On Foot • Holman Day

... semiofficial St. Petersburg press, like the Novoe Vremya, had begun to bluster about the affair, egged on by the Russian Foreign Office, and Sir Edward Grey was compelled to invent some pretext for his manifest dread of displeasing Britain's "good friend Russia" about anything. Hence the birth of that wondrous and fearsome child, that ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 21 - The Recent Days (1910-1914) • Charles F. Horne, Editor

... gets clear at last, and we have to run to overtake the rest of the company. We begin to pant and complain, and bluster against those who are leading. Our feet go down haphazard; we stumble and hold ourselves up by the wails, so that our hands are plastered with mud. The march becomes a stampede, full of the noise of metal things and ...
— Under Fire - The Story of a Squad • Henri Barbusse

... credentials. You had better check them." Since they were as good as any real admiral's I didn't worry in the slightest. Ferraro went through them as carefully as he could in his rattled state, even checking the seals under UV. It gave him time to regain a bit of control and he used it to bluster. ...
— The Misplaced Battleship • Harry Harrison (AKA Henry Maxwell Dempsey)

... at the last Congress meeting, in Surat, these two parties—the Moderates and the Extremists—came into bitter conflict. It was largely due to the past supineness of the Moderates who permitted the other party (which is a small but noisy minority) to resort to bluster in order to force their pet and bitter schemes of disorder upon the Congress. When, ultimately, the Moderates determined to exercise the rights of the majority, the others resorted to force and caused the Congress to be suspended in disorder, thus revealing ...
— India, Its Life and Thought • John P. Jones

... fear is that the perpetual bluster of a party in the States will at last set the patient British back up. And if our people begin to bluster too, and there should come into existence an exasperating war-party on both sides, there will be great danger ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 3 (of 3), 1836-1870 • Charles Dickens

... Father—there's no need to bluster in this fashion. Take up the poker and go and break into the door quiet and decent, like anyone else would do. And girls—off for your bonnets this moment I ...
— Six Plays • Florence Henrietta Darwin

... do you prate, fool?" he questioned huskily, seeking to bluster it before the startled ...
— The Shame of Motley • Raphael Sabatini

... achieved prosperity. After one election he showed a callous indifference to the hard work of the gang and complete disregard of his before-election promises. He counted upon the resentment wearing itself out, as usual, in threats and bluster. ...
— Theodore Roosevelt - An Autobiography by Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt

... endless throng, And restless, turbid rivers seethe and rack, 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 ...
— The Poetry of Wales • John Jenkins

... when the scores were posted. The contest had grown too tight for mere noise and bluster. A false step now by any patrol might drop it hopelessly to the rear. When Mr. Wall's commands still held the scouts in ranks, the faces they turned to him were ...
— Don Strong, Patrol Leader • William Heyliger

... which as far 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 the mountains. ...
— Tales From Two Hemispheres • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen

... embrace the conveniences of life, find them, when I most nearly consider them, very little more than wind. But what? We are all wind throughout; and, moreover, the wind itself, more discreet than we, loves to bluster and shift from corner to corner, and contents itself with its proper offices without desiring stability and solidity-qualities not ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne

... discreetly in Brilliana's eyes as she gave the Puritan a bow for his praise. The Cavalier, a viola da gamba of anger, pegged his string of bluster tighter. ...
— The Lady of Loyalty House - A Novel • Justin Huntly McCarthy

... that by purging itself of bloody violence, hatred, and revenge, and becoming the sentinel of affection, jealousy has lost any of its intensity. On the contrary, its depth is quintupled. The bluster and fury of savage violence is only a momentary ebullition of sensual passion, whereas the anguish of jealousy as we ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck

... fearful storm, the heavens seem As if they would vent themselves in streams of fire; So thick the darkness which usurps the day, That one might see the stars. The angry winds Bluster and howl like spirits loosed from hell. The firm earth trembles, and the aged elms Groaning, bow down their venerable tops. Yet this terrific tumult, o'er our heads, Which teacheth gentleness to savage beasts, So that they seek the shelter ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller

... Young Ireland, really meaning 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 of a tongue, ...
— The Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1834-1872, Vol II. • Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson

... 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 ...
— A Publisher and His Friends • Samuel Smiles

... 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 ...
— Initials Only • Anna Katharine Green

... he hastily closed the window again. There was something in the incessant boom of that tumbling water which strangely disturbed him. He could better stand suspense than that. If only the wind would bluster again. That, at least, was intermittent in its fury and gave momentary relief to thoughts strained to ...
— The Chief Legatee • Anna Katharine Green

... violence? —> 173. Violence.— N. violence, inclemency, vehemence, might, impetuosity; boisterousness &c. adj.; effervescence, ebullition; turbulence, bluster; uproar, callithump [obs3][U. S.], riot, row, rumpus, le diable a quatre[Fr], devil to pay, all the fat in the fire. severity &c. 739; ferocity, rage, fury; exacerbation, exasperation, malignity; fit, paroxysm; orgasm, climax, aphrodisia[obs3]; force, brute force; outrage; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus

... a wrong platform at Victoria. What are you going to do about it?" Now you might think that the porter would reply, "Come off it, Mister; you don't kid me like that," or make some other disappointing and impolite remark; but not a bit of it. Bluster is the thing that pays. First of all he will apologise, and then he will fetch the station-master, and he will apologise too, and after a bit they will offer you a special train back to Streatham Common, probably the one the KING uses ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, July 28th, 1920 • Various

... bluster of Johnny's rally a really injured innocence made its outcry. "She had no more reason to bolt than a—a grandmother." Grandmothers appeared to be Johnny's sole figure of comparison. "You're getting this dead wrong, Barry. . . . Look here, what do ...
— The Innocent Adventuress • Mary Hastings Bradley

... who do see him, vastly admire him. What manner of beings these admirers are may be imagined from their idol. No contrast can be greater than that which exists between the Parisian Bobadils and the Provincial Mobiles. The latter are quiet and orderly, eager to drill and without a vestige of bluster—these poor peasants are of a very different stuff from the emasculated, conceited scum which has palmed itself off on Europe as representative Frenchmen. The families with whom they lodge speak with wonder of their sobriety, their decency, and their simple ways, ...
— Diary of the Besieged Resident in Paris • Henry Labouchere

... the slide upon us. The chart-room was insulated. The hum of the current was obvious. Johnson noticed it. He started at the hostile faces of the surgeon and Balch. And he tried to bluster. ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, March 1930 • Various

... black, and overcast, that some of them would grow moody, and chose to sit apart. On the contrary, it only proves the thing which I maintain. For even on shore, there are many people naturally gay and light-hearted, who, whenever the autumnal wind begins to bluster round the corners, and roar along the chimney-stacks, straight becomes cross, petulant, and irritable. What is more mellow than fine old ale? Yet thunder will sour the best ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville

... 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 ...
— Cleek, the Master Detective • Thomas W. Hanshew

... refused to 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 here ...
— Jack of the Pony Express • Frank V. Webster

... pp. 60-63, in his SECOND form of the Book. The "M—" is an Abbe Duvernet; of no great mark otherwise. He got into Revolution trouble afterwards, but escaped with his head; and republished his Book, swollen out somewhat by new "Anecdotes" and republican bluster, in this second instance; signing himself T. J. D. V—(Paris, 1797). A vague but not dark or mendacious little Book; with traces of real EYESIGHT in it,—by one who had personally known Voltaire, or at least seen and heard him.] He retired ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. X. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—At Reinsberg—1736-1740 • Thomas Carlyle

... to see his debtor face to face: this was the heart of his dream. When he came back a second time and was again told that he could not see the Baron, he began to storm and bluster, and insisted that they should at least let him talk with ...
— The Goose Man • Jacob Wassermann

... Mr. Rabbit, "you know the road that leads to Brag is the shortest route to Bluster. Brother Buzzard and Brother Crow were quarreling because they had been bragging, and a little more and they'd have had a regular pitched battle ...
— Little Mr. Thimblefinger and His Queer Country • Joel Chandler Harris

... sufferers from his troubles. He removes Polja confidently enough from her surroundings—but only leaves the greater darkness behind him. Even he is as yet unable to transform the conditions of life—and he is therefore stigmatised by a little of the Russian bluster. ...
— Maxim Gorki • Hans Ostwald

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

... old man, his fury suddenly changing to a white heat of passion, which was more terrible than the bluster that had gone before. "Silence, lest I strike thee to the ground where thou standest, and plunge this dagger in thine heart sooner than hear thee blaspheme the Holy Church in which thou wast reared! How darest thou talk thus to me? as though yon accursed heretic of a ...
— The Lost Treasure of Trevlyn - A Story of the Days of the Gunpowder Plot • Evelyn Everett-Green

... his possession for some considerable time, and even threatened the bookseller, when he insisted on detaining the book, with the police. This was rather unfortunate, for at that moment a constable passing by was called in, and, in spite of a great deal of bluster and many threats, the thief was marched off to the nearest police-station. The other book, it was found, had also been stolen that morning from another shop, and the ...
— The Book-Hunter in London - Historical and Other Studies of Collectors and Collecting • William Roberts

... Sparsit from that position any more. It was in vain for Bounderby to bluster or to assert himself in any of his explosive ways; Mrs. Sparsit was resolved to have compassion on him, as a Victim. She was polite, obliging, cheerful, hopeful; but, the more polite, the more obliging, the more cheerful, the more hopeful, the more exemplary altogether, ...
— Hard Times • Charles Dickens*

... felt almost a boy again. The spring was 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

... going to 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 ...
— Ballads of a Cheechako • Robert W. Service

... 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 have weakened it. ...
— The Ramrodders - A Novel • Holman Day

... at FOX AND GEESE, Are new-made polititians by thy book, And both can judge and conquer with a look. The hidden fate of princes you unfold; Court, clergy, commons, by your law control'd. Strange, serious wantoning all that they Bluster'd ...
— Lucasta • Richard Lovelace

... 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 Of deep and ...
— The Hesperides & Noble Numbers: Vol. 1 and 2 • Robert Herrick

... the 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

... months together, but will fly in cowardly terror the moment you turn upon them in righteous anger! I should just laugh at them, but I would drive them out, hold not a moment's parley with them. Of course, they will bluster and show fight, because you have let them have their own way for so long that they will not tamely submit to expulsion; but face them with iron determination, set your will against them like an immovable rock, and down they will go. Say to them: 'I am a spark of the divine ...
— Elementary Theosophy • L. W. Rogers

... twenty guns with their horses, and about thirty battle flags. It was a tremendous capture, if he could hold his ground. No officer of the Union army ever showed to better advantage. The world may well forgive the touch of vanity and bluster in the undaunted Hancock, as he sent this despatch to Grant: "I have used up Johnson and am going into Hill." He found, however, that he should have terrible work even to keep the ...
— Notable Events of the Nineteenth Century - Great Deeds of Men and Nations and the Progress of the World • Various

... other from side to side, and shout lustily for the police; and squalling women, and chattering men, and ignorant country people, and elegant mercers' apprentices, and gay-mannered grocers, hustle, and scream, and swear, and lecture, and threaten, and bluster—but not a single blow! The guardian of the public peace appears, and the combatants evanish into thin air; and in a few minutes after this dreadful melee, the violin strikes up a fresh waltz, and all goes "gaily ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXIX. - March, 1843, Vol. LIII. • Various

... 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, ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... to our Courages tho, I tell you that now, Gload; but like an angry Wench, when it had huft and bluster'd it self weary, it ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. I (of 6) • Aphra Behn

... of you, sir," said Dino. "Brian Luttrell's identity will not be disproved by bluster. There is not the least doubt about it. Mr. Brian Luttrell is alive and has been teaching in your father's family for the last few months under the name of ...
— Under False Pretences - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant

... himself, and strokes of his own eloquence." So runs the complaint of Joseph Warton.[38] The distrust was not without ground. The danger that the method of Longinus in the hands of ungifted writers would become a cloak for critical ignorance and degenerate into empty bluster was already apparent.[39] Only rarely was there a reader who could distinguish between the false and the true application of the method. Gibbon did it in a passage which impressed itself upon the younger critics of Hazlitt's generation. ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin

... nook when the party arrived. They were evidently six or seven—their conversation was the common bluster and boisterousness of their trade—and between their demands for supper, their coarse jokes, and their curses at the lubberliness or loitering of their associates from the other side of the Channel, (for, with all their accompliceship, they had the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 334, August 1843 • Various

... His opponent, with brag, bluster, pomposity, cheap wit, and insincerity, served him as a magnificent foil. Never again were wind and tide ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 7 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Orators • Elbert Hubbard

... fate was against him, and that any further hostility toward the shadow was only a tempting of Providence. He lost his health, spirits, and everything but his courage. His countenance became pale and peaceful-looking; the bluster departed from him; his body shrank up like a withered parsnip. Thrice was he compelled to take in his clothes, and thrice did he ascertain that much of his time would be necessarily spent in pursuing his retreating person through the solitude of ...
— Stories by English Authors: Ireland • Various

... substitute with presents and fraternal messages; and now and then a King's ship, carrying an officer of the King's navy, or an ambassador of the King's Council, irresolutely loitering about the Bay of Algiers trying to mollify a surly despot, or perhaps to experiment in a little meaningless bluster, at which the Dey laughs in his sleeve, or even openly, for he knows he has only to persevere in his demands and every government in Europe will give in. Consuls may pull down their flags and threaten war; admirals may come and look stern, and even make a show ...
— The Story of the Barbary Corsairs • Stanley Lane-Poole

... Troy ascribe to Pandarus that shameful traffic out of which his name has passed into the words 'to pander' and 'pandarism.' 'Rodomontade' is from Rodomonte, a hero of Boiardo; who yet, it must be owned, does not bluster and boast, as the word founded on his name seems to imply; adopted by Ariosto, it was by him changed into Rodamonte. 'Thrasonical' is from Thraso, the braggart of Roman comedy. Cervantes has given us 'quixotic'; Swift 'lilliputian'; to Moliere the French language owes 'tartuffe' ...
— On the Study of Words • Richard C Trench

... 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 ...
— The Iliad of Homer - Translated into English Blank Verse • Homer

... 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 it at the mill. ...
— The Parish Register • George Crabbe

... Omar attempted to bluster a little more, but had sense enough to perceive that he had already gone too far, and at length consented to grant the consuls' demands. The condemned consul was immediately set at liberty, and his brethren returned to his ...
— The Pirate City - An Algerine Tale • R.M. Ballantyne

... parliamentary tactics and watchfulness of Senators Doane, Coon, Smith, White, Dinsmore, Harrington and Tefft carried the bill through the bluster of the minority to its final vote; by twenty-two for to eight against.[469] When Senator Howe's name was called ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various

... knowledge or consent; "How," 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 ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill

... fertilizing, go on with something of the hilarity of a wake, rather than the despondency of other funerals. When the wind begins to come out of the northwest of set purpose, and to sweep the ground with low and searching fierceness, very different from the roistering, jolly bluster of early fall, I have put the strawberries under their coverlet of leaves, pruned the grape-vines and laid them under the soil, tied up the tender plants, given the fruit trees a good, solid meal about the roots; and so I turn away, writing Resurgam on the ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... creature, of a martial front and a baby heart, most fortunate in his breadth of shoulder, his height, and the readiness of the choleric blood to come into his cheeks, the eagerness of his husky voice to bluster. ...
— Country Neighbors • Alice Brown

... In 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 ...
— The Astronomy of Milton's 'Paradise Lost' • Thomas Orchard

... with a bluster that even exaggerated the theatrical character of the raid itself. Constance did not stop to weigh the value of his words, but through the door she brushed quickly. Adele might need her if ...
— Constance Dunlap • Arthur B. Reeve

... of the Palace. There have been some meetings, with resolutions to support the Bill, to express approbation of the Ministers, and to protest against the payment of taxes, and there will probably be a good deal of bustle and bluster here and elsewhere; but I do not believe in real tumults, particularly when the rabble and the unions know that there is a Government which will not stand such things, and that they will not be able to bandy compliments with the Duke as they did with ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. II • Charles C. F. Greville

... the left-hand columnar group, placed at the edge of the picture after the manner of Leonardo. The woman and child lighten the mass of foliage on the right and make a beautiful pattern. The white town of Castelfranco sings against the threatening sky, the winds bluster through the space, the trees shiver with the coming storm. Here and there leafy boughs are struck in with a slight, crisp touch, in which we can follow readily the ...
— The Venetian School of Painting • Evelyn March Phillipps

... in the world for the thief and swindler to talk with the greatest apparent earnestness and sincerity and honesty. Pious talk very frequently is the haze in which an avaricious and greedy soul hides itself. Bluff, bluster, and boasting are the sops which the coward throws to his own vanity, while the quietest, sweetest, and gentlest tones often sheath the fierce heart of the born fighter, as a velvet glove is said to clothe ...
— Analyzing Character • Katherine M. H. Blackford and Arthur Newcomb

... them, and fought for them, and paid for them," says the North. "By our labor we have raised their indolence to a par with our energy. While we have worked like men, we have allowed them to talk and bluster. We have warmed them in our bosom, and now they turn against us and sting us. The world sees that this is so. England, above all, must see it, and, seeing it, should speak out her true opinion." The North is hot with such thoughts as these; and one ...
— Volume 1 • Anthony Trollope

... bear is not usually a formidable opponent, and though he will sometimes charge home he is much more apt to bluster and bully than actually to come to close quarters. I myself have but once seen a man who had been hurt by one of these bears. This was an Indian. He had come on the beast close up in a thick wood, and had mortally wounded it with his gun; it had then closed with him, knocking the gun ...
— Hunting the Grisly and Other Sketches • Theodore Roosevelt

... 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 ...
— The War and the Churches • Joseph McCabe

... Arthur was no mystic. He did not 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 enough ...
— A Hero and Some Other Folks • William A. Quayle

... "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 about your bonds ...
— The Madness of May • Meredith Nicholson

... 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 ...
— The Mayor of Troy • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... 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 ...
— Tom Brown's Schooldays • Thomas Hughes

... slip, there would have been more ground for imputing to him an incapacity to distinguish between truth and falsehood. Freeman's "Last Words on Mr. Froude" show no sign of penitence or good feeling, and they end with characteristic bluster about the truth, from which he had so grievously departed. But Froude was never ...
— The Life of Froude • Herbert Paul

... International Polity (HEINEMANN), a 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. For it must be obvious that not a cold, still ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, April 22, 1914 • Various

... something and hang on," the red-faced man said to me. All his bluster had gone, and he seemed to have caught the contagion of preternatural calm. "And listen to the women scream," he said grimly—almost bitterly, I thought, as though he had been through ...
— The Sea-Wolf • Jack London

... who had charge of the affairs of a tribe in the North, and he was as pleasant and cheery a Spirit as one would wish to see. Soon after, Wassamo heard a great rumbling and roaring, as of waters tumbling over rocks; and presently, with a vast bluster, and fairly shaking the lodge with his deep-throated hail of welcome to the old Sand-Spirit, in rolled another, who was the Guardian Spirit and special director of a great cataract ...
— The Indian Fairy Book - From the Original Legends • Cornelius Mathews

... on his way to the telephone and addressing PHILIP with an evil expression.] You were always a bully and a blusterer, Mackworth; but, take my word for it, if you fancy you can bully Mr. Dunning, and bluster to my family, with any satisfactory results to yourself, you're ...
— The Big Drum - A Comedy in Four Acts • Arthur Pinero

... thickets;—what a privilege of 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, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 47, September, 1861 • Various

... were tossed like footballs, legs and arms quarrelled in the air and yet lay quietly on the earth. Horses trampled upon heaps of carcasses, troops of carbines tumbled wounded from their horses, we besiege Moors and famine us, mutinies bluster and are calm. I vowed not to doff mine armour though my flesh were frozen to it and turn into iron, nor to cut head nor beard till they yielded. My hairs and oath are of one length for, with Caesar, thus write I mine own ...
— The Noble Spanish Soldier • Thomas Dekker

... now 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 ...
— The Marquis of Lossie • George MacDonald

... willing. Once roused, they have always been dangerous and hard-fighting foes; but they have been over-difficult to rouse. Their educated classes, in particular, need to be perpetually reminded that, though it is an evil thing to brave a conflict needlessly, or to bully and bluster, it is an even worse thing to flinch from a fight for which there is legitimate provocation, or to live in supine, slothful, unprepared ease, helpless to avenge ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume Four - Louisiana and the Northwest, 1791-1807 • Theodore Roosevelt

... Punch," said Pen, laughing, as he nursed his leg, which reminded him of his wound from time to time. "But I don't believe it. It's only bluster and brag, of which I think our fellows ought to be ashamed. Why, you've more than once seen the French soldiers drive ...
— !Tention - A Story of Boy-Life during the Peninsular War • George Manville Fenn

... first came, and tried to "throw a holy scare into him," as he put it. The old formula did not work in the case of the lean, long-jawed, bony-chinned man. He was polite, but obdurate, and his quick gray eyes seemed to read to their inner process of bluff and bluster as through tissue paper before a lamp. When they had tried to flash their guns on him, the climax of their play, he had beaten them to it. Two of them were carried back to the big ranchhouse in blankets, with bullets through their fleshy parts—not ...
— The Rustler of Wind River • G. W. Ogden

... 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 ...
— Volume 2 • Anthony Trollope

... he, "throwing shells into the town till they sent me out 400 hostages." The simple truth is that in spite of his long pedigree and good blood Bismarck was not quite a gentleman in our sense of the word; and as this accounts for his ferocious bluster and truculent bloodthirsty utterances when he was in power in the war time, so it was the keynote to his more recent undignified attitude and howls of querulous impatience of his altered situation. It must be said of him, however, that he was a man of cool and undaunted courage. ...
— Camps, Quarters, and Casual Places • Archibald Forbes



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



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