Swagger

How to spell swagger

7 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce swagger

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does swagger mean?

1. verbTo walk or behave in a deliberately confident, arrogant way meant to impress or intimidate others.
2. nounA confident, arrogant manner of walking or behaving.

Swagger in a sentence

• verb

  The new manager tends to swagger around the office as if he owns it.

• noun

  He crossed the room with an unmistakable swagger that annoyed his colleagues.

• verb

  The striker likes to swagger onto the pitch before kick-off.

• noun

  There was a certain swagger in the way she announced her promotion.

Where does swagger come from?

Language of origin: Old Norse

Swagger first appears in English around the late 1500s, and Shakespeare is among the earliest writers to use it, in 'A Midsummer Night's Dream'. It was formed from the older verb 'swag', meaning to sway, lurch, or move heavily from side to side, with the frequentative ending -er added to suggest a repeated, habitual motion; so a swaggerer was literally someone who kept swaying about. The root 'swag' is thought to be of Scandinavian origin, related to Old Norse words for a heavy, rocking movement, which is also why a hanging bundle or curtain droop later came to be called swag. Over time the bodily sense of rolling along shifted into the social one: walking with a bold, self-important roll that shows off confidence or arrogance. The double g, which trips up some writers, simply preserves the short, hard vowel of the original 'swag' before the suffix is attached.

How the word is built

• swag (to sway, lurch)
• -er (frequentative verb suffix indicating repeated action)