rattle one's sabre

present singular third person rattles one's sabre · participle present rattling one's sabre · participle past rattled one's sabre · past rattled one's sabre

1. alternativeAlternative form of sabre-rattle.

   It began to emerge from its hiatus in October of 1935 as planning for a new ministry began as Germany began to rattle its sabre once more.

   2019, Erwin Warkentin, The Political Warfare Executive Syllabus Volume I

   2 more examples

   Policies like these, which come close to being plunder, would seem to violate international law, but Washington's response to that is simply to rattle its sabre.

   2006, Theodore Roszak, World, Beware!: American Triumphalism in an Age of Terror, page 96

   While unfailingly courteous to the jury, he could be quite sharp with counsel and witnesses, and rattle his sabre at the press: his first reported words in the case were that any journalist thinking of interviewing a juror 'had better bring a toothbrush'.

   2014, Michael Bloch, Jeremy Thorpe

2. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see rattle, sabre.