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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



... but wut half on't is lies; For who'd thought the North wuz a-goin' to rise, Or take the pervokin'est kin' of a stump, 'Thout't wuz sunthin' ez pressin' ez Gabr'el's las' trump? Or who'd ha' supposed, arter sech swell an' bluster 'Bout the lick-ary-ten-on-ye fighters they'd muster, Raised by hand on briled lightnin', ez op'lent 'z you please In a primitive furrest o' femmily-trees, Who'd ha' thought thet them Southerners ever 'ud show Starns with pedigrees to 'em like theirn to the foe, Or, when the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 55, May, 1862 • Various

... nation when we ignore the very disadvantages that militate against true nationalism. We bluster about national sentiment and spend our money on paying to have ourselves Americanized. When we are tired trying to explain that, we fall back into dithyrambics on the Old Flag and the ...
— The Masques of Ottawa • Domino

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

... 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 as a marriage-bell." ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXIX. - March, 1843, Vol. LIII. • 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 ...
— The Power and the Glory • Grace MacGowan Cooke

... or of Danae for whose sake he became a shower of gold, seeing that in the telling thereof I should waste too much time. Nay, even the savage god of war, whose strength appalls the giants, repressed his wrathful bluster, being forced to such submission by this my son, and became gentle and loving. And the forger of Jupiter, and artificer of his three-pronged thunderbolts, though trained to handle fire, was smitten by a shaft more potent than ...
— La Fiammetta • Giovanni Boccaccio

... 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

... 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 ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill

... 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 ...
— The Opal Serpent • Fergus Hume

... crawled slowly from hill to hill without bluster of smoke. A dun-colored cloud of dust floated away to the right. The sky overhead was of a ...
— The Red Badge of Courage - An Episode of the American Civil War • Stephen Crane

... animal of a man, whose every gesture labelled him the cock of the walk and the admiration of the ladies—had apparently despaired of the fire, and now strode up and down, sneezing hard, bitterly blowing his nose, and proffering a continual stream of bluster, complaint, and barrack-room oaths. ...
— St Ives • Robert Louis Stevenson

... 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 change ...
— The Rushton Boys at Treasure Cove - Or, The Missing Chest of Gold • Spencer Davenport

... a blue jay neighborhood or a blackbird neighborhood? The place was well policed, certainly; robins and blue jays united in that work, though their relations with each other bore the character of an armed neutrality, always ready for a few hot words and a little bluster, but never really coming to blows. We never had the pleasure of seeing a stranger among us. We might hear him approaching, nearer and nearer, till, just as the eager listener fancied he might alight in sight, there would burst ...
— A Bird-Lover in the West • Olive Thorne Miller

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

... above, the earth below Roared aloud; that thunder'd, and this shook: Bluster'd the tempests strong; the whirlwinds blow; The bitter storm drove hailstones in his look; But yet his arm grew neither weak nor slow, Nor of that fury heed or care he took, Till low to earth the wounded tree down bended; en fled the spirits ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan

... forenoon the clouds begin to gather and pile up in dark billowy masses that end in showers during the afternoon and evening. But not every rain cloud brings rain. Clouds of this character often look very threatening, but all their display of thunder and lightning is only bluff and bluster and ends in a fizzle with no rain. After such a demonstration the clouds either bring wind and a disagreeable dust storm, or, if a little rain starts to fall, the air is so dry that it evaporates in mid air, and none of it ever ...
— Arizona Sketches • Joseph A. Munk

... 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

... full height, six feet and two inches. Clasping his hands behind his back he looked steadily down at Judson until the little man trembled. No bluster, nor blows, could have equalled the supremacy of that graceful motion ...
— The Price of the Prairie - A Story of Kansas • Margaret Hill McCarter

... last few 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 India we may pursue one of two policies: ...
— An Englishman Looks at the World • H. G. Wells

... suppose 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

... Don't you know, that on the account of this same business we have sustained the battery of stones, brickbats, and the contents of the ditch? And can you believe we can much care for mere words of insult, after that? Albeit the opprobrious phrases have the fetid coarseness befitting the bluster of property without education, or the more highly inspirited tone of railing learnt in a college, they are quite another kind of thing to be the mark for, than such assailments as have come from the brawny arms of some of your peasants, set on probably by broad hints or ...
— An Essay on the Evils of Popular Ignorance • John Foster

... case you will need to 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 his mentality or ...
— Certain Success • Norval A. Hawkins

... I don't care," Barnes answered with a weak attempt at bluster. "They're mine now, and I'm going ...
— The Avenger • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... you?' he says. He always was comical, jest as comical as he could be. 'Get down there and look at her snout,' he said to me. 'Find out which of us is going to sink.' That was Fred all over—one of these fellows, all bluster, where it's a bucket of wind ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1919 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various

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

... ages, who else— Such, so soulless, so poor, Is the race of men whom I see— Seem'd but a dream of the heart, Seem'd but a cry of desire. Yes! I believe that there lived Others like thee in the past, Not like the men of the crowd Who all round me to-day Bluster or cringe, and make life Hideous, and arid, and vile; But souls temper'd with fire, Fervent, heroic, and good, ...
— Poetical Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold

... said the Blue-gum, when the darkness came to the mountain, "I am going to have a good sleep tonight. I'm a match still for old Daddy Wind, in spite of all his noise and bluster. And there are ways of dealing with white-ants, too. I've lived upon this mountain, tree and ...
— A Book for Kids • C. J. (Clarence Michael James) Dennis

... quietly going about their business, when with a great whoop and hurrah, which frightened their horses and made them break loose from their wagons, a company of men came in sight, and with swagger and bluster, took possession of the polls, and proceeded to do the voting. Meantime whisky flowed like water, and the men, far gone in liquor, turned the place into a bedlam. In utter humiliation and disgust many of the squatters went home. Caleb May did not get into the ...
— Personal Recollections of Pardee Butler • Pardee Butler

... 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

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

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

... timber. Foliage, of course, there was none. Cottonwood and willow in favored nooks along the Platte were just beginning to shoot forth their tiny pea-green tendrils in answer to the caressing touch of the May-day sunshine. April had been a month of storm and bluster and huge, wanton wastes of snow, whirling and drifting down from the bleak range that veiled the valley of the Laramie from the rays of the westering sun; and any one who chose to stroll out from ...
— 'Laramie;' - or, The Queen of Bedlam. • Charles King

... come. Oxford contented himself with quarreling in a loud voice; but those whom he was trying to impress were not deceived by his bluster, and all present knew that he had proved ...
— With Spurs of Gold - Heroes of Chivalry and their Deeds • Frances Nimmo Greene

... this bluster, I saw that old Katchiba was in a great dilemma, and that he would give anything for a shower, but that lie did not know how to get out of the scrape. It was a common freak of the tribes to sacrifice the rain-maker should he be unsuccessful. ...
— In the Heart of Africa • Samuel White Baker

... 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 ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore

... ignore this 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 Christian resignation; we may dissolve the realities of human woe ...
— The Pivot of Civilization • Margaret Sanger

... haue not offended: For those that were, it is not square to take On those that are, Reuenge: Crimes, like Lands Are not inherited, then deere Countryman, Bring in thy rankes, but leaue without thy rage, Spare thy Athenian Cradle, and those Kin Which in the bluster of thy wrath must fall With those that haue offended, like a Shepheard, Approach the Fold, and cull th' infected ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare

... Greece, vol. i. p. 350.] while the medieval romances about the siege of 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

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

... 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 ...
— The Voice of the People • Ellen Glasgow

... "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 ...
— The Madness of May • Meredith Nicholson

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

... 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 ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. X. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—At Reinsberg—1736-1740 • Thomas Carlyle

... 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

... 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

... prescribed it, and it was your crowning act of kindness to me, dear Mrs. Ormonde. It is possible that I have grown coarser; indeed, I know that I associate on terms of equality and friendliness with men from whom I should formerly have shrunk. I can get angry, and stand on my rights, and bluster if need be, and on the whole I think I am no worse for that. My ear is not offended if I hear myself called 'boss;' why should it be? it is a word as well as another. Nay, I have even felt something like excitement when listening to political ...
— Thyrza • George Gissing

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

... 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 then only to interrogate the silence which his ...
— Ten Years Later - Chapters 1-104 • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... straight; When no 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, ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift

... in good, but not in bad. My second is in sane, but not in mad. My third is in rooster, not in fowl. My fourth is in hawk, but not in owl. My fifth is in plant, but not in flower. My sixth is in rain, but not in shower. My seventh is in bluster, not in rant. My eighth is in emmet, not in ant. My whole is the name of a ...
— Harper's Young People, August 17, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various

... worst form of government of which the world has 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 to myself ...
— A Leap in the Dark - A Criticism of the Principles of Home Rule as Illustrated by the - Bill of 1893 • A.V. Dicey

... 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 ...
— Six Plays • Florence Henrietta Darwin

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

... You are going to tell me how I wormed my way into the good graces of your father and coaxed him to make me his beneficiary. It is your intention to be mean, to insult me, to try to bully me." Her eyes flashed as she leaned a little toward him. "Understand," she said; "your bluster won't have the slightest effect on me. I am not afraid of you. So swear and curse to your heart's content. As for bossing the ranch," she went on, her voice suddenly one of cold mockery, "what is there to boss? Some dilapidated buildings! Of course you may boss those, because they can't ...
— The Boss of the Lazy Y • Charles Alden Seltzer

... her mistake in mentioning Luther's name to John almost before it was out of her mouth. John's instincts made him bluster and get off the subject of business and on to that of personalities at once. She did not reply to the taunt, but went quietly back to ...
— The Wind Before the Dawn • Dell H. Munger

... 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 against such building. ...
— The Palace of Pleasure, Volume 1 • William Painter

... 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 ...
— The Deserter • Charles King

... one of those Americans who insist at all times and under all circumstances that he is as good as any man, simply because in his heart of hearts he knows that he is not, but hopes by this bluster to deceive the world. On the contrary, he was a firm advocate of an aristocratic form of government, and did not hesitate to say that he considered the Declaration of Independence, wherein it refers to the absolute equality of man, as ...
— L. P. M. - The End of the Great War • J. Stewart Barney

... packing-box of a house, when I expected to be at sea and sailing for Newport to say how d'you do on my way to New York. I wanted to have the pleasure of seeing your kindly face and of having you take that niece of yours in hand for a time. The girl is getting beyond me, and when I want to bluster she looks at me just as her mother used to and I get so weak that you could knock me over with a feather. She looks so much like Dorothy that sometimes I have to pinch myself to make sure it is not her mother sitting at the ...
— Sweetapple Cove • George van Schaick

... and respect publicity and force in matters not to their liking, and Mr. Gerard's fearlessness in reports of conditions and urgent pleas for improvement have been of great service. All the threats and bluster of Germany have failed ...
— The Land of Deepening Shadow - Germany-at-War • D. Thomas Curtin

... Mr. Jack MacKenzie, with much brusque bluster to conceal his longings for the life he was too old to follow and many cynical injunctions about "skinning the skunk" and "knocking the head off anything that stood in my way" and "always profiting from the follies of other men"—"mind, have none yourself,"—parted from us. Here, ...
— Lords of the North • A. C. Laut

... 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 ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - LA CONSTANTIN—1660 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE

... worth. I know you can't held a foot of land 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 so irritating ...
— The Flying U's Last Stand • B. M. Bower

... you for this," he said. It was a simple statement, made without heat or bluster, and aside from this one remark he failed to speak a syllable until the sheriff rode away ...
— The Settling of the Sage • Hal G. Evarts

... her sudden pallor he was taking fright again, and he began to bolster up his courage with bluster ...
— The Fighting Chance • Robert W. Chambers

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

... of feet, a promise of quick and dangerous excitement, but Sabatier did not move, and Bruslart's eyes, as he quietly sipped his wine, looked over the rim of the glass at Boissin, who seemed confused and unable to bluster. There was a long pause which was broken by a ...
— The Light That Lures • Percy Brebner

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

... Confessions, 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 he had ...
— An Arkansas Planter • Opie Percival Read

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

... vice inherent in our civilisation; but if the Press withdrew its subvention, his monopoly would be curtailed, and art would be recruited by new talent, at present submerged. Art would gradually withdraw from the bluster and boom of an arrogant commercialism, and would attain her olden dignity—that of a quiet handicraft. And in this great reformation only two classes would suffer—the art critics and the dealers. The newspaper ...
— Modern Painting • George Moore

... you bluster,—on the sabbath day, also. In your ship I sail not, Batavius. Good-by, then, Katherine; and if any are unkind to thee, tell thy brother. For thou art right, ...
— The Bow of Orange Ribbon - A Romance of New York • Amelia E. Barr

... especially of Frenchmen, never cease? 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

... 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 ...
— The Noble Spanish Soldier • Thomas Dekker

... intemperate sprite romps and rollicks, and all the features of prettiness and repose are distraught under the bluster and lateral blur of a cyclone, still do I revel in the scene. Does a mother love her child the less when, contorted with passion, it storms and rages? She grieves that a little soul should be so greatly ...
— My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield

... tone of public feeling is for the Constitution. While much will be yielded—every thing, almost, but the integrity of the Constitution, and the essential interests of the country—to the cause of mutual harmony and mutual conciliation, no ground can be granted, not an inch, to menace and bluster. Indeed, menace and bluster, and the putting forth of daring, unconstitutional doctrines, are, at this very moment, the chief obstacles to mutual harmony and satisfactory accommodation. Men cannot well reason, and confer, and take counsel together, ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster

... pretty pair!" 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 ...
— Cleek, the Master Detective • Thomas W. Hanshew

... 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

... great London theatres was present. He was on the lookout for something that might be got up as a prodigy. The theatre, it seems, was in desperate condition—nothing but a miracle could save it. He pitched upon me for that miracle. I had a remarkable bluster in my style, and swagger in my gait, and having taken to drink a little during my troubles, my voice was somewhat cracked; so that it seemed like two voices run into one. The thought struck the agent ...
— Tales of a Traveller • Washington Irving

... in future of this "superfluous swelling." So he indulged in a critical Donnybrook; but after hitting out and about at the Essay for three months he left it much as he found it.(19) He could not get to close quarters with Farmer's scholarship. His bluster compares ill with Farmer's gentler manner, and in some passages the quiet humour has proved too subtle for his animosity. There was more impartiality in the judgment of Johnson: "Dr. Farmer, you have done ...
— Eighteenth Century Essays on Shakespeare • D. Nichol Smith

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

... than to mere political action. It was free in its criticism of persons or parties who it considered were setting up false standards for the guidance of the people. It derided the policy of the Irish Party as "half-bluster and half-whine," and when Mr Redmond spoke rhetorically of "wringing from whatever Government may be in power the full measure of a nation's rights," it bluntly told him he was talking "arrant humbug." It made the development ...
— Ireland Since Parnell • Daniel Desmond Sheehan

... his designs with friendly demonstrations, and in a time of profound peace surprised the quiet town of New Amsterdam with a hostile fleet and land force and a peremptory demand for surrender. The only hindrance interposed was a few hours of vain and angry bluster from Stuyvesant. The indifference of the Dutch republic, which had from the beginning refused its colony any promise of protection, and the sordid despotism of the Company, and the arrogant contempt of popular rights ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon

... burly thick-necked strength of body as of soul;—built, in both cases, on what the old Marquis calls a fond gaillard. By nature, by course of breeding, indeed by nation, Mirabeau has much more of bluster; a noisy, forward, unresting man. But the characteristic of Mirabeau too is veracity and sense, power of true insight, superiority of vision. The thing that he says is worth remembering. It is a flash of insight into some object or other: so do both these men speak. The same raging ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle

... 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 shall deserve to ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver

... from the house, leaving its 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 ...
— Born in Exile • George Gissing

... 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, diamonded with ripple-broken sunbeams, the fantastic Notonecta or ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 47, September, 1861 • Various

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

... pettifogger. "Bluster is a good dog, but Holdfast is the better. You can prove nothing, as you well know. Moreover, with your own neck in a noose you dare not mess and meddle with ...
— The Master of Appleby • Francis Lynde

... preparations for manufacturing. Terry knew ten times as much about the business as Barnum did, and knowing, also, that the old stock was comparatively worthless, held back while Barnum was urging him to push ahead with the manufacturing. Terry made a great bluster, saying that he was going to hire men and do a great business, while, unknown to Barnum, he was trying to sell the stock he held in the company. They finally cooked up a plan to sell their New York store and the Bridgeport factory and machinery, if they could, to the Jerome Manufacturing Company, ...
— History of the American Clock Business for the Past Sixty Years, - and Life of Chauncey Jerome • Chauncey Jerome

... 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 to make a living off of sheep. Now, we don't want to start in by quarreling with our neighbors, ...
— Flying U Ranch • B. M. Bower

... dress is there to assist 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 painter's ...
— The Venetian School of Painting • Evelyn March Phillipps

... No bluster, no threat, no fear, no hint of expression in the voice which was as steady as Thornton's, with something in it akin to the steely steadiness of the ...
— Six Feet Four • Jackson Gregory

... 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 Kittrell had worked on it that ...
— Americans All - Stories of American Life of To-Day • Various

... 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

... 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

... with a humbleness that seemed strangely gentle after all his bluster and brag, "will you look at this and tell me what you think ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Fisheries • Francis Rolt-Wheeler

... giant in size, but as gentle as the most delicate woman. He has only one eye, but that a very good one which does not miss things. He has been made into a regular hero by the people here, but he is the most modest man I have ever met. He is sincere and unassuming, so calm, with no heroic bluster about him. His voice is quiet and gentle. We had a blow-out for him, and all those present were very discreet. We all forgot our years and our troubles and we showed him a good time. I hardly think that even ...
— An Anarchist Woman • Hutchins Hapgood

... of the way, Lou sat down on the step and began to whittle. "Well, what do folks in New York think of William Jennings Bryan?" Lou began to bluster, as he always did when he talked politics. "We gave Wall Street a scare in ninety-six, all right, and we're fixing another to hand them. Silver wasn't the only issue," he nodded mysteriously. "There's a good many things got to be changed. ...
— O Pioneers! • Willa Cather

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

... was just thinking! Thinking of a man whom I used to denounce as bad-tempered! A dear, kind, thoughtful, unselfish Englishman with a—a bluster! I can never call it temper again, after knowing Mr Travers! He has taught ...
— The Lady of the Basement Flat • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey

... that I so curiously and particularly 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 ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne

... the next steamer for Sydney," he said, and for the first time his speech was quiet and without bluster. ...
— A Son Of The Sun • Jack London

... telling his prisoners that if any other New England village were treated as Deerfield had been, he would come back with a thousand Indians and leave them free to do what they pleased. With this bluster, he left the unfortunate peasants in the extremity of terror, after carrying off as many of them as were needed for purposes of exchange. A small detachment was sent to Beaubassin, where ...
— A Half Century of Conflict - Volume I - France and England in North America • Francis Parkman

... that led to the cave, as if someone had stumbled against a loose stone in the dark. I did not know then, but have learnt since, that where there is a loud noise, such as the roaring of a cascade, the churning of a mill, or, as here, the rage and bluster of a storm—if there arise some different sound, even though it be as slight as the whistle of a bird, 'twill strike the ear clear above the general din. And so it was this night, for I caught that stumbling ...
— Moonfleet • J. Meade Falkner

... whose words to them are never even warm. So it was with this man when he spoke to himself in his solitude of his purpose of resigning the titled heiress. To the arguments, the entreaties, or the threats of others he would pay no heed. The Countess might bluster about her rank, and he would heed her not at all. He cared nothing for the whole tribe of Lovels. If Lady Anna asked for release, she should be released. But not till she had heard his words. How scalding these words might be, how powerful ...
— Lady Anna • Anthony Trollope

... 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 ...
— A Walk from London to John O'Groat's • Elihu Burritt

... way, yes. The volcano itself is harmless enough. It smokes unpleasantly now and then, splutters and rumbles as if about to obliterate all creation, but for all its bluster it only manages to spill a trickle or two of fresh lava down its sides—just tamely subsides after deluging Leavitt with a shower of cinders and ashes. But Leavitt won't leave it alone. He goes poking into the very crater, half strangling himself in its poisonous ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1920 • Various

... tuition, the young French chevaliers began to add bluster and arrogance to their former petulance and levity; they fired up on the most trivial occasions, particularly with those who had been most successful with the fair; and would put on the most intolerable drawcansir airs. The other chevaliers conducted themselves with all possible forbearance ...
— Wolfert's Roost and Miscellanies • Washington Irving

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

... 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 trembling wretch tried first to bluster and then to explain. Carroll was again summoned and affirmed emphatically that he and Crawley had been separated for the greater part of one day, and that while together they had not approached Mr. ...
— The Prospector - A Tale of the Crow's Nest Pass • Ralph Connor

... a 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 ...
— The Magnificent Adventure - Being the Story of the World's Greatest Exploration and - the Romance of a Very Gallant Gentleman • Emerson Hough

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

... more money of Foster, and call him a liar when told that every dollar was burned. Then he sought to pick a fight with Hunt, who had, as he expressed it, "roped him like a steer," but the carload by this time had had too much of his bluster and ...
— Ray's Daughter - A Story of Manila • Charles King

... 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 ...
— Gawayne And The Green Knight - A Fairy Tale • Charlton Miner Lewis



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



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