belligerently

comparative more belligerently · superlative most belligerently

1. In a belligerent manner; with aggressive hostility.

   They swaggered unsteadily but belligerently toward the bar and looked at Pete with bleared and blinking eyes.

   1896, Stephen Crane, chapter 11, in Maggie: A Girl of the Streets, New York: Appleton, pages 88–89

   2 more examples

   “How’d you get a job like this?” she asked. “A fella got to eat,” he began; and then, belligerently, “A fella got a right to eat.”

   1939, John Steinbeck, chapter 26, in The Grapes of Wrath, New York: Viking, published 1962, page 512

   In truth, Mrs. Lish’s charge of anti-Semitism had backfired with a number of the faculty, who were quite belligerently anti-Semitic themselves.

   1989, John Irving, chapter 7, in A Prayer for Owen Meany, New York: William Morrow, page 338