sabre-rattle
sabre-rattle verb: to threaten a big battle or war.
Verb
sabre-rattle (third-person singular simple present sabre-rattles, present participle sabre-rattling, simple past and past participle sabre-rattled)
- To threaten a big battle or war.
- Then you speak of "the President's spread-eagle patriotism," his delight in "barnyard language," his "readiness to sabre-rattle at the ripple of a flag,"1969, Lawrence Edmund Spivak, Meet the Press: America's Press Conference of the Air
- The Chinese and the Russians sabre-rattle like mad against each other, but they both seem to be super-practical countries in that they trade with each other when they need to.1980, Optical Spectra - Volume 14, page 164
Examples of sabre-rattle in a sentence
- Do I want to change group norms (say to get higher output, or acceptance of change) or just sabre-rattle?1991, Robert Arthur Lee, Peter Lawrence, Politics at work, page 91:
- If I go in all confident, all don't-even-think-of-fucking-with-me, they'll rabble-rouse and sabre-rattle to beat the band.2013, John Andrew Fredrick, The King of Good Intentions, page 105:
Forms of sabre-rattle
| third-person singular present | sabre-rattles |
|---|---|
| present participle | sabre-rattling |
| past participle | sabre-rattled |
| past | sabre-rattled |
| alternative form | sabre rattle |
| alternative form | saber-rattle |
| alternative form | saber rattle |
| alternative form | rattle the sabre |
| alternative form | rattle the saber |
| alternative form | rattle a sabre |
| alternative form | rattle a saber |
| alternative form | rattle one's sabre |
| alternative form | rattle one's saber |
Origin of sabre-rattle
From the early 20th century, when an officer would threaten to draw his sabre.
Questions about sabre-rattle
- What does sabre-rattle mean?
- Sabre-rattle means to threaten a big battle or war.
- How do you use sabre-rattle in a sentence?
- Do I want to change group norms (say to get higher output, or acceptance of change) or just sabre-rattle?
- What part of speech is sabre-rattle?
- Sabre-rattle is a verb.
- What is the past tense of sabre-rattle?
- The past tense of sabre-rattle is sabre-rattled.
Words near sabre-rattle in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: sabre-rattle (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: “sabre-rattle.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sabre-rattle. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.