Word.ws English Dictionary

swaggering

swaggering is the present participle and gerund of swagger.

Meaning of swagger

Verb

swagger (third-person singular simple present swaggers, present participle swaggering, simple past and past participle swaggered)

  1. To behave (especially to walk or carry oneself) in a pompous, superior manner.
    • What hempen home-ſpuns haue we ſwaggering here, / So neere the Cradle of the Faierie Queene?c. 1595–1596 (date written), William Shakespeare, “A Midsommer Nights Dreame”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies: Published According to the True Originall Copies (First...
  2. To boast or brag noisily; to bluster; to bully.
    • To be great is not […] to swagger at our footmen.1698, Jeremy Collier, A Moral Essay upon Pride
  3. To walk with a swaying motion.
    • It's the injustice… he is so unjust—
      whiskey-blind, swaggering home at five.1959, Robert Lowell, “To Speak of Woe That Is in Marriage”, in Life Studies

See all 8 meanings of swagger

Adjective

swaggering (comparative more swaggering, superlative most swaggering)

  1. Boastful, proud, self-confident.
    Antonyms:
    mincing

Noun

swaggering (countable and uncountable, plural swaggerings)

  1. Boastful, blustering behaviour.
    • Since the return of the redoubtable head of the French people to Paris, I have been no less amused by his ill-digested boastings and swaggerings, than I was before delighted by the complete discomfiture of his ambitious plans.1814, George Cruikshank, Robert Cruikshank, The Spirit of the Public Journals

Synonyms of swaggering

Antonyms

Forms of swaggering

Adjective
comparativemore swaggering
superlativemost swaggering
Noun
pluralswaggerings

Words formed from swaggering

Phrases with swaggering

Questions about swaggering

What does swaggering mean?
Swaggering means boastful, proud, self-confident.
What is swaggering the present participle and gerund of?
Swaggering is the present participle and gerund of swagger.
What part of speech is swaggering?
Swaggering can be an adjective or a noun.

Words near swaggering in the dictionary

  1. swaggered
  2. swaggered it
  3. swaggerer
  4. swaggerers
  5. swaggerific
  6. swaggering
  7. swaggering it
  8. swaggeringly
  9. swaggerings
  10. swaggerlicious
  11. swaggers

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: swaggering (page history and authors); swagger (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: “swaggering.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/swaggering. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.