truculence

plural truculences · alternative truculency

1. uncountableusuallyThe state of being truculent; eagerness to fight; ferocity.

   He was huge in all that he did, and his benevolence was even more overpowering than his truculence.

   1929, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, The Disintegration Machine

   3 more examples

   To these provincial autocrats, before whom the peaceable population of all classes had been accustomed to tremble, the reserve of that English-looking engineer caused an uneasiness which swung to and fro between cringing and truculence.

   1904 January 29 – October 7, Joseph Conrad, chapter 7, in Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard, London; New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers […], published 1904, →OCLC

   Dundy’s fists were clenched in front of his body and his feet were planted firm and a little apart on the floor, but the truculence in his face was modified by thin rims of white showing between green irises and upper eyelids.

   1930, Dashiell Hammet, chapter 8, in The Maltese Falcon, New York, N.Y.; London: Alfred A[braham] Knopf, →OCLC, page 97

   Trump’s truculence on the world stage: “Everyone kowtows to Iran because they’re crazy. Now we have our own bit of crazy.”

   2020, Bret Stephens, “Meet a Secret Trump Voter”, in New York Times

   Synonyms: aggressiveness, defiance, ferociousness, savageness, truculency