bluster
/ˈblʌstə
/verb [no object]
1Talk in a loud, aggressive, or indignant way with little effect: you threaten and bluster, but won’t carry it through [with direct speech]: ‘I don’t care what he says,’ I blustered...
- The government blustered, threatened, and finally publicly admitted that the students were right.
- And when he finally appeared, he blustered and brayed, losing none of the stonewalling qualities that had marked his time in politics.
- My own view would be to let him bluster, let him rant and rave all he wants, and let that be a matter between he and his own country.
Synonyms
rant, thunder;
boast, brag, swagger, throw one's weight about/around, be overbearing, lord it, vaunt, bray, crow
2(Of a storm, wind, or rain) blow or beat fiercely and noisily: a winter gale blustered against the sides of the house (as adjective blustering) the blustering wind...
- The wind is blustering through the trees outside, and every so often assails the outside walls of my house as if testing their fortitude.
- The arctic wind blustering over the Baltic Sea is biting, teeth-chattering cold.
- The rain blusters under the roof and I think I feel the bridge collapsing under me.
Synonyms
blow fiercely, blast, gust, storm, roar, rush
noun [mass noun]
Loud, aggressive, or indignant talk with little effect: their threats contained a measure of bluster...
- The answer, it turns out, has something to do with excess humbug production and a decline in the exchange rate between bluster and bombast.
- Self-reference - not to speak of bluster or bragging - was at the zero level, as were all other forms of showmanship.
- No amount of imperial bluster, disciplined armies or powerful artillery trains could impress these hardened tribes.
Synonyms
ranting, hectoring, thundering, threatening, threats, bullying, domineering;
boasting, bragging, swaggering, throwing one's weight around;
bombast, bravado, bumptiousness, imperiousness;
empty threats, humbug
literary braggadocio
Derivatives
blusterer
/ noun ...- What I'm talking about are serial losers and bamboozlers, serial frauds and fakes, serial blusterers and blowhards.
- It's a dubious, lop-sided kind of integrity at best - but at least this bullying blusterer of a politician was prepared to take action and not wring his hands in the face of a rising tide of simplistic, fear-driven politics.
- In both cases, when the going got tough, the blusterers got out.
Origin
Late Middle English: ultimately imitative.