posture

plural postures

1. countableuncountableThe way a person holds and positions their body.

   Rise, sir, from this semi-recumbent posture. It is most indecorous.

   1895, Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest […] , [Act I]

   2 more examples

   As if that whatsoever god who leads him Were slily crept into his human powers, And gave him graceful posture.

   c. 1608–1609 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedy of Coriolanus”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, (please specify the act number in uppercase Roman numerals, and the scene number in lowercase Roman numerals)

   […] walking in a most dejected posture, without a band, unbraced, his arms a-cross his open breast, and his eyes bent to the floor;

   a. 1689, Aphra Behn, Love-Letters Between a Nobleman and His Sister

2. countableuncountableA situation or condition.

   Uncle Jim stopped amazed. His brain did not instantly rise to the new posture of things.

   1910, H.G. Wells, The History of Mr Polly

   1 more example

   Even as I was reading these fables of my millions, there lay on the desk before me a statement of the exact posture of my affairs […]

   1905, David Graham Phillips, The Deluge

3. countableuncountableOne's attitude or the social or political position one takes towards an issue or another person.

   1651, Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan ...that is, their Forts, Garrisons, and Guns upon the Frontiers of their Kingdomes; and continuall Spyes upon their neighbours; which is a posture of War.

   1 more example

   1912, G.K. Chesterton, A Miscellany of Men But it is not true, no sane person can call it true, that man as a whole in his general attitude towards the world, in his posture towards death or green fields, towards the weather or the baby, will be wise to cultivate dissatisfaction.

4. countablerareuncountableThe position of someone or something relative to another; position; situation.

   1661, Thomas Salusbury (translator), Galileo's Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief Systems of the World The Moon beheld in any posture, in respect of the Sun and us, sheweth us its superficies ... always equally clear.

   1 more example

   As for the guides, they were debarred from the pleasure of discourse, the one being placed in the van, and the other obliged to bring up the rear. In this posture they travelled many hours, till they came into a wide and well-beaten road […]

   1749, Henry Fielding, The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling, volume (please specify |volume=I to VI), London: A[ndrew] Millar, […], →OCLC

present singular third person postures · participle present posturing · participle past postured · past postured

1. intransitiveTo put one's body into a posture or series of postures, especially hoping that one will be noticed and admired.

   If you're finished posturing in front of the mirror, can I use the bathroom now?

2. intransitiveTo pretend to have an opinion or a conviction.

   The politicians couldn't really care less about the issue: they're just posturing for the media.

   2 more examples

   But these plays allow us to look beyond the posturing, punditry and angry speechifying, to really feel the painful, inescapable hardships of daily life as it is lived by increasing numbers of Americans.

   2016 September 3, Charles Isherwood, “Anxious Dramas for the Age of Trump and Sanders”, in The New York Times

   Belarusian officials continue to posture military strength amid the ongoing Ukrainian incursion into Kursk Oblast, Russia.

   2024 August 16, Kateryna Stepanenko, Christina Harward, Riley Bailey, Angelica Evans, Frederick W. Kagan, “Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, August 16, 2024”, in Ukraine Project, The Institute for the Study of War

3. transitiveTo place in a particular position or attitude; to pose.

   to posture oneself; to posture a model

   1 more example

   As pointed Diamonds being set, Cast greater lustre out of Jet, Those peeces we esteem most rare, Which in night shadows postur'd are.

   1655, James Howell, Epistolæ Ho-Elianæ. Familiar Letters Domestic and Forren. […], 3rd edition, volume (please specify the page), London: […] Humphrey Mos[e]ley, […], →OCLC