Swashbuckler

noun

noun ·Moderate ·College level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A swordsman or fencer who engages in showy or extravagant swordplay.

    "Phillips, in his New World of Words defines, to swash, to make fly about; to clash, or make a noise with swords; and a swash-buckler, a vain glorious sword player or fencer, a meer braggadochoe, a vapouring fellow."

  2. 2
    a reckless impetuous irresponsible person wordnet
  3. 3
    A daring adventurer.
  4. 4
    A kind of period adventure story with flashy action and a lighthearted tone.

Synonyms

All synonyms
adventurerbattlerbelligerentbelted knightbickererblade

Example

More examples

"Phillips, in his New World of Words defines, to swash, to make fly about; to clash, or make a noise with swords; and a swash-buckler, a vain glorious sword player or fencer, a meer braggadochoe, a vapouring fellow."

Etymology

From swash + buckler.

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