truculent
Language: English
Part of speech: adj
Pronunciation: enpr: trŭkʹyə-lənt
ipa: /ˈtɹʌk.jʊ.lənt/
ipa: /ˈtɹʌk.jə.lənt/
Forms: form: more truculent
form: most truculent
Etymology: First attested circa 1540, from Middle French, from Latin truculentus (“fierce, savage”), from trux (“fierce, wild”).
Senses: examples: text: The truculent soldiers gave us a steely-eyed stare.
text: 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.
ref: 1860 December – 1861 August, Charles Dickens, Great Expectations […], volume (please specify |volume=I to III), London: Chapman and Hall, […], published October 1861, →OCLC:
text: His face was very truculent, grey and massive, with black cavernous nostrils and circled by a scanty white fur.
ref: 1904–1907 (date written), James Joyce, “The Sisters”, in Dubliners, London: Grant Richards, published June 1914, →OCLC, page 16:
synonyms: barbarous
ferocious
fierce
glosses: Cruel or savage.
examples: text: 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.
ref: 1847 October 16, Currer Bell [pseudonym; Charlotte Brontë], chapter VI, in Jane Eyre. An Autobiography. […], volume I, London: Smith, Elder, and Co., […], →OCLC, page 102:
text: Rokoff assumed a truculent air, attempting by bravado to show how little he feared Tarzan’s threats.
ref: 1913 June–December, Edgar Rice Burroughs, The Return of Tarzan, New York, N.Y.: A[lexander] C[aldwell] McClurg, published March 1915, →OCLC:
synonyms: inflexible
stubborn
unyielding
glosses: Defiant or uncompromising.
examples: text: 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.
ref: 1877, David Magarshack, chapter 12, in Anna Karenina, part 6, translation of original by Leo Tolstoy:
text: 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.
ref: 1914, Edgar Rice Burroughs, chapter 10, in The Beasts of Tarzan, Chicago, Ill.: A[lexander] C[aldwell] McClurg & Co., published March 1916, →OCLC:
text: 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.
ref: 1992, Joel Feinberg, “The Social Importance of Moral Rights”, in Philosophical Perspectives, Ethics, page 195:
text: These bitches is getting truculent.
ref: 2013 February 11, Phil Bronstein, quoting SEAL Team Six Member, “The Man Who Killed Osama bin Laden... Is Screwed”, in Esquire Magazine:
synonyms: belligerent
glosses: Eager or quick to argue, fight or start a conflict.
examples: text: Voltaire is never either gross or truculent.
ref: 1872, John Morley, Voltaire:
text: […] 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.
ref: 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:
text: 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.
ref: 1922, Rafael Sabatini, chapter XVI, in Captain Blood:
glosses: Violent; rude; scathing; savage; harsh.
raw_tags: of speech or writing
examples: text: More or less truculent Plagues.
ref: 1665, Gideon Harvey, A Discourse of the Plague … with several waies for purifying the air in houses, streets:
glosses: Destructive; deadly.
raw_tags: of a disease
Related terms: truculence
truculency
truculently
belligerent