• (British) IPA: /ˈswæɡ.ə/
• (America) IPA: /ˈswæɡ.ɚ/

A frequentative form of swag ("to sway"), first attested in 1590, in A Midsummer Night's Dream III.i.79:

• PUCK: What hempen homespuns have we swaggering here?

swagger (swaggers, present participle swaggering; simple past and past participle swaggered)

1. To behave (especially to walk or carry oneself) in a pompous, superior manner.
   • 1845, B[enjamin] Disraeli, chapter XI, in Sybil; or The Two Nations. […], volume I, London: Henry Colburn, […], →OCLC ↗, book II, page 235 ↗:

     He is a political humbug, the greatest of all humbugs; a man who swaggers about London clubs and consults solemnly about his influence, and in the country is a nonentity.

2. To boast or brag noisily; to bluster; to bully.
   • 1698, Jeremy Collier, A Moral Essay upon Pride:

     To be great is not […] to swagger at our footmen.

3. To walk with a swaying motion.

• French: pavaner, plastronner, rouler des mécaniques
• German: großtun, sich wichtigmachen, wichtigtun
• Italian: pavoneggiarsi, gloriarsi, millantarsi
• Russian: ва́жничать
• Spanish: pavonear

• French: se vanter, fanfaronner, (colloquial) se la péter, (vulgar) péter plus haut que son cul, (informal) faire le beau
• German: angeben, prahlen, aufschneiden
• Spanish: fanfarronear

• French: rouler des épaules
• German: stolzieren, gockeln (humorously)
• Italian: pavoneggiarsi
• Russian: расхаживать с важный

swagger

1. Confidence, pride.
2. A bold or arrogant strut.
   • 1899 February, Joseph Conrad, “The Heart of Darkness”, in Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, volume CLXV, number M, New York, N.Y.: The Leonard Scott Publishing Company, […], →OCLC ↗, part I:

     He steered with no end of a swagger while you were by; but if he lost sight of you, he became instantly the prey of an abject funk, and would let that cripple of a steamboat get the upper hand of him in a minute.

3. A prideful boasting or bragging.
   • 1968, Robert F. Kennedy, On the Mindless Menace of Violence:

     Too often we honor swagger and bluster and the wielders of force; too often we excuse those who are willing to build their lives on the shattered dreams of others.

• French: fierté
• German: Selbstbewusstsein, Stolz

• French: prétentieux, rouleur de mécaniques, outrecuidant
• German: Stolzieren
• Italian: boria, spavalderia
• Portuguese: marra
• Spanish: pavoneo

• French: hâblerie, fanfaronnade, plastronnade, gasconnade, vantardise
• German: Angeberei, Prahlerei, Großtuerei
• Portuguese: bravata
• Spanish: fanfarroneo

swagger

1. (slang, archaic) Fashionable; trendy.
   • 1899, Robert Barr, Jennie Baxter, Journalist:

     It is to be a very swagger affair, with notables from every part of Europe, and they seem determined that no one connected with a newspaper shall be admitted.

   • 15 March, 1896, Ernest Rutherford, letter to Mary Newton

     Mrs J.J. [Thomson] looked very well and was dressed very swagger and made a very fine hostess.

   • 1908, Baroness Orczy, The Old Man in the Corner:

     Mrs. Morton was well known for her Americanisms, her swagger dinner parties, and beautiful Paris gowns.

swagger (plural swaggers)

1. (Australia, NZ, historical) Synonym of swagman