truculence
1
9.9
- noun
- /ˈtrʌkjələns/
- Formal
:
truculencia
- The player's truculence was evident when he aggressively confronted the referee over a call.
They stood out because of their arrogance and conceit, overconfidence, mocking, truculence and impetuousness.
- They stood out because of their arrogance and conceit, overconfidence, mocking, truculence and impetuousness.
Examples
-
On the shore, a score of men stood in attitudes of nervous truculence, striding back and forth, bushknives and long spring-bows at the ready.
Fiction book (1993) -
Structural threats are tied to the inequities found within a society, most of which can be traced to the ineptitude or truculence of the government.
Academic text (2002) -
My primary reason for my tepid support during his election is his truculence on this issue.
Blog text (32) -
The truculence of his expression was made to measure: stakes were high and shortcomings were serious.
Academic text (2018) -
McCain's foreign policy advisor received some of this money, which probably accounts for some of the old coot's truculence toward Russia.
Blog text (23) -
The timing of the tense state of Chinese-Japanese relations thus speaks volumes about the opportunity costs of China's diplomatic truculence.
Academic text (2011) -
For one thing, Washington must stop defining Chinese power principally as a military challenge; otherwise, it will squander scarce resources and push Beijing to adopt the type of truculence Washington wishes to avoid.
Academic text (2007) -
They stood out because of their arrogance and conceit, overconfidence, mocking, truculence and impetuousness.
-
Cockburn is entitled to his literary fun, but I found this parodic apparatus distracting; it made me long for the truculence of his journalistic persona.
Academic text (1996) -
A practitioner of bravery and truculence, he was an intimate of mind-numbing intellectual fear: his mind was a bullring, an arena, and he felt a natural alarm, a matador's dread.
Fiction book (1991)
Synonyms
A quick angry way of behaving that leads to arguments
Antonyms
How Aggressive
Surface Forms
Morphology
Etymology
Truculence comes from an old Latin root trux meaning 'fierce' or 'wild', and you can see the same root in truculent. So, truculence is the tendency to be hostile or ready to fight, which explains why a truculent person acts aggressively.