Sabre-rattling

adj, noun, verb

adj, noun, verb ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A flamboyant display of military power as an implied threat that it might be used. countable, idiomatic, uncountable
  2. 2
    Any threat, such as one company threatening another with a lawsuit. countable, figuratively, idiomatic, uncountable
Verb
  1. 1
    present participle and gerund of sabre-rattle form-of, gerund, participle, present
Adjective
  1. 1
    Bellicose; threatening military action.

    "But it excited much discontent in sabre-rattling court circles which regarded Austrophilia as the most un-French of diplomatic perversions."

Example

More examples

"But it excited much discontent in sabre-rattling court circles which regarded Austrophilia as the most un-French of diplomatic perversions."

Etymology

From the early 20th century, when an officer would threaten to draw his sabre.

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.