truculent

comparative more truculent · superlative most truculent

1. Cruel or savage.

   The truculent soldiers gave us a steely-eyed stare.

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   She really was a most charming girl, and might have passed for a captive fairy, whom that truculent Ogre, Old Barley, had pressed into his service.

   1860 December – 1861 August, Charles Dickens, Great Expectations […], volume (please specify |volume=I to III), London: Chapman and Hall, […], published October 1861, →OCLC

   His face was very truculent, grey and massive, with black cavernous nostrils and circled by a scanty white fur.

   1904–1907 (date written), James Joyce, “The Sisters”, in Dubliners, London: Grant Richards, published June 1914, →OCLC, page 16

   Synonyms: barbarous, ferocious, fierce, barbarous, bowelless, brutal, compassionless, cruel

2. Defiant or uncompromising.

   Rokoff assumed a truculent air, attempting by bravado to show how little he feared Tarzan’s threats.

   1913 June–December, Edgar Rice Burroughs, The Return of Tarzan, New York, N.Y.: A[lexander] C[aldwell] McClurg, published March 1915, →OCLC

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   In her turn, Helen Burns asked me to explain, and I proceeded forthwith to pour out, in my own way, the tale of my sufferings and resentments. Bitter and truculent when excited, I spoke as I felt, without reserve or softening.

   1847 October 16, Currer Bell [pseudonym; Charlotte Brontë], chapter VI, in Jane Eyre. […], volume I, London: Smith, Elder, and Co., […], →OCLC, page 102

   Synonyms: inflexible, stubborn, unyielding, adamant, ardent, grim, untiring, bent on

3. Eager or quick to argue, fight or start a conflict.

   These bitches is getting truculent.

   2013 February 11, Phil Bronstein, quoting SEAL Team Six Member, “The Man Who Killed Osama bin Laden... Is Screwed”, in Esquire Magazine

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   She might pity herself, but he must not pity her. She did not want any quarrel; she blamed him for wanting one, but she could not help assuming a truculent attitude.

   1877, David Magarshack, chapter 12, in Anna Karenina, part 6, translation of original by Leo Tolstoy

   If he came too close to a she with a young baby, the former would bare her great fighting fangs and growl ominously, and occasionally a truculent young bull would snarl a warning if Tarzan approached while the former was eating.

   1914, Edgar Rice Burroughs, chapter 10, in The Beasts of Tarzan, Chicago, Ill.: A[lexander] C[aldwell] McClurg & Co., published March 1916, →OCLC

   It is an important source of the value of moral rights then that — speaking very generally — they dispose people with opposed interests to be reasonable rather than arrogant and truculent.

   1992, Joel Feinberg, “The Social Importance of Moral Rights”, in Philosophical Perspectives, Ethics, page 195

   Synonyms: bellicose, belligerent, pugnacious, aggressive, antagonistic, assaultive, bellicose, belligerent

4. Violent; rude; scathing; savage; harsh.

   Voltaire is never either gross or truculent.

   1872, John Morley, Voltaire

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   […] or again, the first whispering of love, dainty and witty and tender, to the girl he served a few days ago with sateen, or a gallant rescue of generalised beauty in distress from truculent insult or ravening dog.

   1896, H[erbert] G[eorge] Wells, chapter 10, in The Wheels of Chance: A Holiday Adventure, London: J[oseph] M[alaby] Dent and Co.; New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Co., →OCLC

   Cahusac appeared to be having it all his own way, and he raised his harsh, querulous voice so that all might hear his truculent denunciation.

   1922, Rafael Sabatini, chapter XVI, in Captain Blood

   Synonyms: acerbic, caustic, vitriolic, vituperative

5. obsoleterareDestructive; deadly.

   More or less truculent Plagues.

   1665, Gideon Harvey, A Discourse of the Plague … with several waies for purifying the air in houses, streets