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A blustering noise; a swaggering behavior. [Obs.]

A bully or braggadocio; a swaggering, boastful fellow; a swaggerer. Milton.

Swaggering; hectoring. "A swashing and martial outside." Shak.

cutting part, of a sword. -- Sword cane, a cane which conceals the blade of a sword or dagger, as in a sheath. -- Sword dance. (a) A dance in which swords are brandished and clashed together by the male dancers. Sir W. Scott. (b) A dance performed over swords laid on the ground, but without touching them. -- Sword…

A child's toy, somewhat resembling a top, and twirled by the fingers. The staggerings of the gentleman . . . were like those of a teetotum nearly spent. Dickens.

Fig.: Extravagant; exaggerated; high-flown. "Three-piled hyperboles." Shak.

Staggering, as if from intoxication; reeling. Midnight shout and revelry, Tipsy dance and jollity. Milton.

To shake so as to threaten a fall; to vacillate; to be unsteady; to stagger; as,an old man totters with age. "As a bowing wall shall ye be, and as a tottering fence." Ps. lxii. 3.

An insane or greatly exaggerated dread of poisons.

Elevation above truth; exaggeration. [Obs.] "Where transcendencies are more allowed." Bacon.

An upstart. [Obs.] "The swaggering upspring." Shak.

To move one way and the other; to reel or stagger; to waver. [A spheroid] is always liable to shift and vacillatefrom one axis to another. Paley.

To swagger; to make an ostentatious show. [Prov. eng. & Scot.] Jamieson.

tive; to injure the substance or qualities of; to impair; to contaminate; to spoil; as, exaggeration vitiates a style of writing; sewer gas vitiates the air. A will vitiated and growth out of love with the truth disposes the understanding to error and delusion. South. Without care it may be used to vitiate our minds. B…

To move staggeringly or unsteadily from one side to the other; to vacillate; to move the manner of a rotating disk when the axis of rotation is inclined to that of the disk; -- said of a turning or whirling body; as, a top wabbles; a buzz saw wabbles. wobble.

Done, made, or laid in waggery or for sport; sportive; humorous; as, a waggish trick. -- Wag"gish*ly, adv. -- Wag"gish*ness, n.

a night revel. The king doth wake to-night, and takes his rouse, Keeps wassail, and the swaggering upspring reels. Shak.

An ordinary whisper exaggerated so as to produce the hoarse sound known as the "stage whisper." It is a forcible whisper with some admixture of tone.