blustering
blustering noun: a noisy blowing, as of a blast of wind. Also the present participle and gerund of bluster.
Noun
blustering (countable and uncountable, plural blusterings)
- A noisy blowing, as of a blast of wind.
- He will soon disregard the roaring of your eloquence, as the bold sailor contemns the blustering of the winds […]1784, William Augustus Miles, Letters of Neptune and Gracchus, London: M. Smith, page 41
- Swaggering; braggartry; noisy pretension.
- Boasting and blustering are as objectionable among nations as among individuals, and the public men of a great nation owe it to their sense of national self-respect to speak courteously of foreign powers just as a brave and self-respecting man treats all around him courteously.1906, Theodore Roosevelt, “A Square Deal and the Monroe Doctrine”, in A Square Deal, page 179
- Quiet people too, for I think that about this time a sort of remorseful tenderness comes over the bullies and the nagsters, so that they go about gently and deprecatingly, hoping by one day's record sweetness to outface the year's blusterings.1906, Violet Hunt, The Workaday Woman, page 1
Adjective
blustering (comparative more blustering, superlative most blustering)
- Engaged in or involving the process of blustering, speaking or protesting loudly.
- But when we began to renue our old acquaintance, and to shake the handes of discontinued familiaritie, alas, good Gentleman, his mandillion was ouercropped, his witt paunched like his wiues spindle, his art shanked like a lath, his conceit as lank as a shotten herring, and that same blustering...1593, Gabriel Harvey, Pierce’s supererogation, or a New Prayse of the Old Asse
- Oratory is the huffing and blustering spoilt-child of a semi-barbarous age.1820, Charles Caleb Colton, Lacon, or Many Things in Few Words, addressed to those who think, volume 1, New York: C.P. Fessende, published 1832, page 173
- Pompous or arrogant in one's speech or bearing.
- The Old Inquirer, said Dick Honesty, in' visiting the sick, has seen too many bold, blustering Infidels, in this nasty condition, to entertain the smallest penchant either for their principles, or their exqusitely delightful exits.1820, The Retort Courteous
- A BLUSTERING FELLOW ! There 's a deadly bore, Placed in a good man's way, who only yearns For happiness and joy.1833, R.G.G., Miscellaneous Tales, Original and Select, in Prose and Verse
- Very windy; (of wind) blowing very strongly, blustery.
- The southern wind
Doth play the trumpet to his purposes,
And by his hollow whistling in the leaves
Foretells a tempest and a blustering day.c. 1597 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The First Part of Henry the Fourth, […]”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and... - A blustering night, a fair day.1640, George Herbert, Jacula Prudentum; or, Outlandish Proverbs, Sentences, etc., in The Remains of that Sweet Singer of the Temple George Herbert, London: Pickering, 1841, p. 152
- The southern wind
Also used as
blustering is also the present participle and gerund of bluster.
Examples of blustering in a sentence
- Some attributed it to the popularity of Ambassador Thompson, others felt it was another sign that coexistence is still Soviet policy in spite of Khrushchev’s blustering.1960 April 18, “Halfway Coexistence”, in Time:
- For once Babbitt did not break out in blustering efforts to keep the party going.1922, Sinclair Lewis, chapter IX, in Babbitt, New York, N.Y.: Harcourt, Brace and Company, →OCLC, section I:
- Hermann Göring was a dominating and blustering host.1947, Upton Sinclair, “25, I”, in Presidential Mission:
- At one time there lived here in Switzerland a blustering fellow — I ...1991, Rudolf Steiner, Social Issues: Meditative Thinking and the Threefold Social Order, →ISBN:
Synonyms of blustering
Forms of blustering
| Noun | |
|---|---|
| plural | blusterings |
| Adjective | |
| comparative | more blustering |
| superlative | most blustering |
Origin of blustering
By surface analysis, bluster + -ing.
Words formed from blustering
Questions about blustering
- What does blustering mean?
- Blustering means a noisy blowing, as of a blast of wind.
- How do you use blustering in a sentence?
- Some attributed it to the popularity of Ambassador Thompson, others felt it was another sign that coexistence is still Soviet policy in spite of Khrushchev’s blustering.
- What part of speech is blustering?
- Blustering can be a noun or an adjective.
- What is the plural of blustering?
- The plural of blustering is blusterings.
Words near blustering in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: blustering (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
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Cite this entry: “blustering.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/blustering. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.