truculent

Etymology

Definitions

1. 1

   Cruel or savage.

   • The truculent soldiers gave us a steely-eyed stare.
   • 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.
   • His face was very truculent, grey and massive, with black cavernous nostrils and circled by a scanty white fur.
2. 2

   Defiant or uncompromising.

   • 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.
   • Rokoff assumed a truculent air, attempting by bravado to show how little he feared Tarzan’s threats.
3. 3

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

   • 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.
   • 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.
   • 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.
4. ›+ 2 more definitionsshow fewer

   1. 4

      Violent

      Violent; rude; scathing; savage; harsh.

      • Voltaire is never either gross or truculent.
      • […] 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.
      • 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.
   2. 5

      Destructive

      Destructive; deadly.

      • More or less truculent Plagues.

The neighborhood

• neighbortruculence
• neighbortruculency
• neighbortruculently
• neighborbelligerent