strut
/strʌt
/noun
1A rod or bar forming part of a framework and designed to resist compression: a supporting strut a spindly framework of long, slender struts, girders, and bracing wire...
- The struts of the high girders, which plunge down from the top like the tracks of a rollercoaster, are not absolutely straight.
- Without adding much weight to a structure, struts allow it to resist bending and buckling.
- Each wheel was carried in a fork formed by a pair of hydraulic shock absorber struts.
2 [in singular] A stiff, erect, and apparently arrogant or conceited gait: that old confident strut and swagger has returned...
- Juan has that arrogant and elegant strut about him when he plays which all world-class players have.
- True, Townsend's famous leaps across stage are more of a strut after 35 years, but the old windmill chords are still there.
- He restored the city's confidence in local government, and this put a strut in the city's step.
verb (struts, strutting, strutted)
1 [no object, with adverbial] Walk with a stiff, erect, and apparently arrogant or conceited gait: peacocks strut through the grounds she strutted down the catwalk...
- Another guy walked in, strutting towards the group.
- Jaelyn whispered in Brooke's ear as Hugh walked, no, strutted into the room.
- Russ waddled in a feeble stride as the daughter strutted with a youthful arrogance.
Synonyms
swagger, swank, parade, prance, flounce, stride, sweep;
walk confidently, walk arrogantly
North American informal sashay
rare peacock
2 [with object] Brace (something) with a strut or struts: the holes were close-boarded and strutted
Phrases
strut one's stuff
Derivatives
strutter
- Indeed, Harris is as much a stubborn-headed strutter as his hired front men.
- Loewer was the club's projected No.3 strutter before missing the 2000 season with a broken leg and then shoulder surgery.
- He was a singular strutter, the genuine article, a centre who could create on the hoof and who didn't play by numbers.
struttingly
- Slowly and struttingly did the man of two virtues perform the whole pilgrimage of Oxford-street.
- Yet she finds that there, too, she is manipulated and marginalised by struttingly self-important men and their simpering handmaidens.
- Then he suddenly becomes struttingly self-confident, only to crumple when he finally faces Macduff in battle and learns the truth.
Origin
Old English strūtian 'protrude stiffly', of Germanic origin. Current senses date from the late 16th century.