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Bravado   /brəvˈɑdoʊ/   Listen
Bravado

noun
(pl. bravadoes)
1.
A swaggering show of courage.  Synonym: bluster.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Bravado" Quotes from Famous Books



... little craft, which appeared loaded down to the gunwales, was shoved off with a cheer of bravado from the side of the ship, and was soon lost to the sight of those left behind. The latter, however, eagerly looked after the boat as it was rapidly borne towards the shore between the heavy rolling waves ...
— The Wreck of the Nancy Bell - Cast Away on Kerguelen Land • J. C. Hutcheson

... its desired effect. Smith drew a deep breath, and putting on an air of dogged bravado, looked round at his companions like a mastiff who had been just rescued from a fight that threatened to destroy him. The Mayor fell to sharpening his pencil again, and the Alderman made an effort to open a little gate in the corner of the railing, and would ...
— The Old Homestead • Ann S. Stephens

... evening there had been firing at Rall's outposts, but the careless enemy hardly gave it his attention. Some lost detachment had probably fired on the pickets out of mere bravado. The night had been spent in carousal, and the storm had quieted Rall's mind as regards ...
— The Campaign of Trenton 1776-77 • Samuel Adams Drake

... low places piled with brush, over one of which some buzzards circled, lofty, yet intent as anglers watching their tackle. Hard as that home had been to Hulda, she regretted leaving it for this men's tavern, where her grandmother's saucy temperament found so many incentives to bravado, and her caution, that had to be exercised in Delaware, was quite unnecessary on the Maryland side ...
— The Entailed Hat - Or, Patty Cannon's Times • George Alfred Townsend

... of bravado, handled the sticks of dynamite with criminal recklessness, and finally managed to drop one of them close beside Peveril, the latter sharply commanded him ...
— The Copper Princess - A Story of Lake Superior Mines • Kirk Munroe

... incident must have occurred, we did not press her for the story of it. Then, you came, and without mincing your words you told the whole brutal truth; and you uttered it with a spirit of brutality and bravado that would be unbelievable under any other circumstances. And when, in your own self-abasement for what you had done, you confessed to the acts of which you were guilty toward Miss Langdon, you received, at Duncan's hands, the blow you so thoroughly merited; I am frank to say to you that, ...
— The Last Woman • Ross Beeckman

... yards' distance from the ship. As they did not appear to have a design of attacking our voyagers, Lieutenant Cook was unwilling to do them any hurt; and yet he thought that their going off in a bravado might have a bad effect when it should be reported on shore. To convince them therefore, that they were still in his power, though far beyond the reach of any missile weapon with which they were ...
— Narrative of the Voyages Round The World, • A. Kippis

... children; and Daddy just missed filling the position. He was too 'clever,' his imagination neither wild nor silly enough, for children. And he felt it. He threw off rhymes and stories for them in a spirit of bravado rather—an expression of disappointment. Yet there was passion in them too—concealed. The public missed the heart he showed them in his books in ...
— A Prisoner in Fairyland • Algernon Blackwood

... lively character commemorated in ballads BRAKE, frame for confining a norse's feet while being shod, or strong curb or bridle; trap BRANCHED, with "detached sleeve ornaments, projecting from the shoulders of the gown" (Gifford) BRANDISH, flourish of weapon BRASH, brace BRAVE, bravado, braggart speech BRAVE (adv.), gaily, finely (apparelled) BRAVERIES, gallants BRAVERY, extravagant gaiety of apparel BRAVO, bravado, swaggerer BRAZEN-HEAD, speaking head made by Roger Bacon BREATHE, pause for relaxation; exercise ...
— Every Man Out Of His Humour • Ben Jonson

... journey had been a sad and silent one, though Hallam had roused at its end with the sort of bravado that Amy had seen, and which deceived her no more than it did any of the others; but she loyally seconded his assumed cheerfulness, and after they had gathered about the table, gave them a lively description of ...
— Reels and Spindles - A Story of Mill Life • Evelyn Raymond

... writes Forester, the translator of Suetonius' Lives, "that the point of the coast which was signalised by this ridiculous bravado of Caligula, somewhat redeemed by the erection of a high house, was Itium, afterwards called Gessoriacum and Bononia (Boulogne), a town belonging to the Gaulish tribe of the Morini" (note, ...
— Bolougne-Sur-Mer - St. Patrick's Native Town • Reverend William Canon Fleming

... work when he does catch, he will lose much of his value to the team. Certain injuries are inevitable and necessitate a rest, but there are others of minor importance to which some men will not give way. I do not laud this as pure bravado, but because it sets an example and infuses a spirit into a team that is worth many games in a long race. I have the greatest respect and admiration for the Bennetts ...
— Base-Ball - How to Become a Player • John M. Ward

... pursued his old A. B. C. 70 Contented if he could subscribe In fullest sense his name Estse; ('Tis Punic Greek for 'he hath stood!') Whate'er the men, the cause was good; And therefore with a right good will, 75 Poor fool, he fights their battles still. Tush! squeak'd the Bats;—a mere bravado To whitewash that base renegado; 'Tis plain unless you're blind or mad, His conscience for the bays he barters;— 80 And true it is—as true as sad— These circlets of green baize he had— But then, alas! they were his ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... forehead with his fist, clenched his teeth, closed his eyes and leaned heavily with his elbow on the table. But a minute later his face suddenly changed and with a certain assumed slyness and affectation of bravado, he glanced at ...
— Crime and Punishment • Fyodor Dostoyevsky

... a hazardous predicament. But on looking around us, our apprehensions vanished. Nothing could exceed the perfect coolness and confidence with which the men were cleaning and preparing their rifles for the approaching conflict; no bravado—no boasting, talking, or laughing, but a calm decision of manner, which at once told us, that if it were possible to overcome such odds as were brought against us, those were the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXIX. January, 1844. Vol. LV. • Various

... was a continual change of current, now very rapid and again sluggish and smooth. Just below the town is a water fall of considerable proportions and a great crowd had gone down there to see me shoot over. In a spirit of bravado, I stood up when near the brink and was hurled over head first. Had I hit a rock, it would have killed me. The people cheered, thinking that was the way I always went over them, but I tell you I made up my mind never to ...
— The Story of Paul Boyton - Voyages on All the Great Rivers of the World • Paul Boyton

... is all done!" exclaimed Phillis, in a tone of triumph, as later on in the afternoon they returned to the cottage; but in spite of her bravado, both the girls looked terribly jaded, and Nan especially seemed out of spirits; but then they had been round the Longmead garden, and had gathered some flowers in the conservatory, and this alone would have been depressing ...
— Not Like Other Girls • Rosa N. Carey

... to her vigour elastic, And never exhibit a drug that is drastic. Doctor Russell's the man for a good searching pill, Or a true thorough drench that will cure or will kill. For bleeding and blistering, and easy bravado, (Not to speak of hot water,) he passes Sangrado. He stickles at nothing, from simple phlebotomy, As our friend Sidney said, to a case of lithotomy: And I'll venture to say, that this latest specific, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 364, February 1846 • Various

... restrained from dividing) there would be no endeavour to throw it out. Thus it is that one folly produces another: the Duke's silly speech about the Coronation Oath (a piece of nonsense quite unworthy of his straightforward, manly sense) produced Wrottesley's bravado in the other House. But Wharncliffe says he is persuaded nothing can prevent a collision between the two Houses ultimately. There is a great idea that the Government will fall to pieces before the end of this year. ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. III • Charles C. F. Greville

... pitied her. Poor Catherine was not defiant; she had no genius for bravado; and as she felt that her father viewed her companion's attentions with an unsympathising eye, there was nothing but discomfort for her in the accident of seeming to challenge him. The Doctor felt, indeed, so sorry for her that he turned away, to spare ...
— Washington Square • Henry James

... at last, and Will broke out passionately in revolt, inflamed by a boyish admiration for his own bravado. ...
— The Deliverance; A Romance of the Virginia Tobacco Fields • Ellen Glasgow

... in the air before pouncing on their victims—rode howling around the camp. Their figures hideously marked with paint, were visible from time to time; their long hair streaming in the wind, their cloaks of skins floating in their rapid course, and their piercing cries of defiance and bravado, giving them the appearance of demons, to whom they ...
— Wood Rangers - The Trappers of Sonora • Mayne Reid

... said to Bosinney; "you'd better come back to dinner with us." Into that invitation he put a strange bravado, a stranger pathos: "You, can't deceive me," his look and voice seemed saying, "but see—I trust you—I'm ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... Neither did she come on Tuesday, and that night was to be the fatal end of all things. A great many people went to church that day. The children did suffer from dread, though Lottie Brower kept up a sort of cheery bravado, as one whistles or sings in ...
— A Little Girl in Old New York • Amanda Millie Douglas

... adventurer at heart, as he was, and she was an Englishman of Englishmen. We are accustomed to laugh at the extravagance of the homage which Raleigh paid to a woman old enough to be his mother, at the bravado which made him fling his new plush cloak across a puddle for the Queen to tread over gently, as Fuller tells us, "rewarding him afterwards with many suits for his so free and seasonable tender of so fair a footcloth," or at the story of the rhymes the ...
— Some Diversions of a Man of Letters • Edmund William Gosse

... quick and how tender his intuitions could be. An innuendo from her, faint as the brush of a wing, and he would immediately cluck with his tongue and throw out quite a bravado of chest. ...
— The Vertical City • Fannie Hurst

... news comes to us that South Carolina has taken the initiative, and chosen the arbitrament of war. She has done it because her position was desperate, and because she hoped thereby to unite the Cotton States by a complicity in blood, as they are already committed by a unanimity in bravado. Major Anderson deserves more than ever the thanks of his country for his wise forbearance. The foxes in Charleston, who have already lost their tails in the trap of Secession, wished to throw ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 40, February, 1861 • Various

... into a bottle; so I immediately struck a light, and as I knew that meekness and solicitation, having been tried in vain, would not serve me, I determined to go on the other tack, and to see how far an assumption of coolness and self—possession, or, it might be, a dash of bravado, whether true or feigned, might not at least ensure me some consideration and better treatment from the lawless gang into ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott

... been bravado with him up to the time that he knew this girl was coming out. After that, curiosity and a sense of fair play, mingled, had ensued. Then a new feeling had come after he had met the girl herself—pity, and remorse in regard ...
— The Sagebrusher - A Story of the West • Emerson Hough

... hardiest of the passengers ventured on deck; the exhilaration they professed was but another name for bravado. They shivered and gasped for breath as they forged their bitter way into the gale, and few were they who took more than a single turn of the deck. Like beaten cowards they soon slunk into the sheltered spots, or sought even less heroic means of ...
— The Prince of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon

... highroads, nor quiet lanes, in those days, where a maiden might wander without fear of molestation. Old ballads are full of accounts of the perils incurred by rash and self-sufficient girls who ventured alone out of doors in their innocent ignorance or imprudent bravado. The roadless wastes gave harbour to abundance of fierce small animals and deadly vipers, and to men worse than any ...
— Earl Hubert's Daughter - The Polishing of the Pearl - A Tale of the 13th Century • Emily Sarah Holt

... he had got into a serious scrape that had begun in bravado and ended by a public thrashing. He had poached a trout from the waters of a neighbouring landowner, who had welcomed the opportunity to make himself more than usually objectionable. And on the morning before his thrashing, Jervaise had come into my study and confessed to me ...
— The Jervaise Comedy • J. D. Beresford

... in his eye achieved two results: It cowed the last vestige of bravado in Bostwick's composition and ignited all the hatred of his nature. He hesitated for a moment, his lips parting sidewise as if for a speech of defiance which his moral courage refused to indorse. Then, not daring to refuse the ...
— The Furnace of Gold • Philip Verrill Mighels

... stared at the man, who seemed a part of the horse he was sitting so closely. Would it never end? She did not care now which killed the other so that it would only stop. The man's endurance seemed mere bravado. She clutched Gaston's arms with a hand that was wringing wet. "It is horrible," she gasped with an accent ...
— The Sheik - A Novel • E. M. Hull

... large. There is a meretricious air over both; and there is apparent a popular inclination to condone rather than to take pride in these faits accomplis. The one excursion was a product of sportsmanlike bravado, fed on boyish exuberance, fomented for mercenary objects by certain business interests and place-hunting politicians, and incited by meretricious newspapers with a view to increase their circulation. The other was set afoot by interested businessmen, backed by ...
— An Inquiry Into The Nature Of Peace And The Terms Of Its Perpetuation • Thorstein Veblen

... my game," she concluded, with no spirit of bravado, but merely as if it was only a plain statement of fact. "My men are used to holding their own against Mascola. And I can tell you that is worth ...
— El Diablo • Brayton Norton

... break off the match!" said Virgilia, with a nervous titter. What state of overtension could have prompted her to a piece of bravado so rash, ...
— Under the Skylights • Henry Blake Fuller

... bravado of a young soldier going into action. The poor child betrayed herself to the experienced woman, trained either to detect or to practise artifice, and who found bitter amusement in watching the girl's assumed 'sang-froid'. But the mask fell off at the ...
— Jacqueline, v2 • Th. Bentzon (Mme. Blanc)

... annunciation of our Lady, a Moor appeared early in the morning on the shore, abreast of the ships, calling out in a loud and shrill voice, "that if our men wanted any more water they might now come for it, when they would find such as were ready to force their return." Irritated at this bravado, and remembering the injury done him in withholding the promised pilot, and the loss of the Negro, the general resolved to batter the town with his ordnance in revenge, and the other captains readily agreed to the measure. Wherefore they armed all their boats, and came up before ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. II • Robert Kerr

... before three destroyers came foaming after me, all converging from different directions. They had about as good a chance of catching me as three spaniels would have of overtaking a porpoise. Out of pure bravado—I know it was very wrong—I waited until they were actually within gunshot. Then I sank and we ...
— Danger! and Other Stories • Arthur Conan Doyle

... brought in from the road, from fields and woods. There was one group, men and horses covered with the dust of all time, disarmed, hatless, breathless, several bleeding from sabre cuts. One among them—a small man on a tall horse—indulged in bravado. "What are you going to do with us now you've got us? You've nowhere to take us to! Your damned capital's fallen—fell this morning! Yes, it did! News certain. Rebellion's over and Jack Ketch's waiting for you—waiting for every last dirty ragamuffin ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston

... said, in the little airy melodious way she had when she was telling something particularly unhappy about herself—a sort of harpsichord bravado—"Well, you know, he's taken to fancying himself seriously ill lately, and the doctors have aided and abetted him; and so we're going to Davos Platz, or some such health-wilderness—and well, ...
— Young Lives • Richard Le Gallienne

... all," said he with miserable bravado. And he repeated the same sentence over and over again the whole evening, until it ...
— Ditte: Girl Alive! • Martin Andersen Nexo

... skeltonicall salutation Or condigne gratulation And just vexation Of the Spanish nation, That in bravado Spent many a crusado In setting forth an armado ...
— English Literature, Considered as an Interpreter of English History - Designed as a Manual of Instruction • Henry Coppee

... "a cigarette. Henson handed it over to me. I don't deny that I was terribly frightened, I smoked the cigarette out of bravado." ...
— The Crimson Blind • Fred M. White

... securely about her and make a quick exit. A swooning fear at the thought of meeting a roomful of people assailed her. But there succeeded a courage born of the realization that they all would be strangers. With a sense of bravado she stepped out ...
— The Blood Red Dawn • Charles Caldwell Dobie

... usual, Ogareff replied coldly to the deference paid to him. He was plainly dressed; but, from a sort of impudent bravado, he still wore the uniform of ...
— Michael Strogoff - or, The Courier of the Czar • Jules Verne

... been deeply wounded. Greater than his fear, which was very great indeed, was Nucky's vanity. He gulped the second cup of coffee, then with the air of bravado which belonged to Marty the Dude, he sauntered up to the cigar stand where ...
— The Enchanted Canyon • Honore Willsie Morrow

... was very pale, and kept rubbing his hands and laughing with a sound like a neigh: "hee-hee-hee!" By way of bravado he used to strip and run about the country naked. He used to eat flies and say they were ...
— The Chorus Girl and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov

... outside. The criminal is thus, from his own point of view—and I am speaking of professional criminals—living a life of defensive warfare with the community; and the odds are heavy against him. He therefore builds up a defensive psychology against it—a psychology of boldness, bravado, and self-justification. The good criminal—which means the successful one, he who has most successfully carried through a series of depradations against the enemy, the common enemy, the public—is ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park

... is not only a gentleman, but the son of Nibaran Babu, my school-fellow. Let me tell you, Maharaja, exactly what must have happened. Amulya knows the thief, but wants to shield him by drawing suspicion on himself. That is just the sort of bravado he loves to indulge in." The Inspector turned to Amulya. "Look here, young man," he continued, "I also was eighteen once upon a time, and a student in the Ripon College. I nearly got into gaol trying ...
— The Home and the World • Rabindranath Tagore

... encouraged the queenly Nora and her sprightly mother to feed the beautiful creatures with bread and buns, and to feel the suffusion of pleasure derived from the contact of their soft lips with the palm of the hand. After that they were scarcely astonished when, without bravado, but clearly with simple confidence and enjoyment, Julius put his hand within the bars of the lion's cage and scratched the ears of a lioness, murmuring the while in a strange tongue such fond sounds as only those use who are on the best terms with ...
— Master of His Fate • J. Mclaren Cobban

... days he promised to return, and meanwhile he gave Cicero strict directions to keep the legion within the lines, and not to allow any of the men to stray. It happened that after Caesar recrossed the Rhine two thousand German horse had followed in bravado, and were then plundering between Tongres and the river. Hearing that there was a rich booty in the camp, that Caesar was away, and only a small party had been left to guard it, they decided to try to take the place by a sudden stroke. Cicero, ...
— Caesar: A Sketch • James Anthony Froude

... swagger of pure bravado Mulready turned and obeyed. Unnoticed of any, save perhaps Calendar himself, the boat had drawn in at the stage a moment earlier. Mulready dropped into it and threw himself sullenly upon the ...
— The Black Bag • Louis Joseph Vance

... This was different. If he should think it too public, too unfeminine: he had such a horror of a woman's being any thing but a woman, as strong and brave as she could, but in a womanly way; doing any thing, however painful, that she was obliged to do, but never out of choice or bravado, or the excitement of stepping out of her own sphere into man's. Would Robert Lyon think less of her, Hilary, because she had to earn to take care of herself, to protect herself, and to act in so many ways for herself, contrary to the natural and right order of things? That old order—God forbid ...
— Mistress and Maid • Dinah Craik (aka: Miss Mulock)

... mixture of prompt decision, far-sighted cunning, and mountebank bravado in this speech, staggered me for a moment—and only for a moment. The one question to consider was, whether I was justified or not in possessing myself of the means of establishing Laura's identity at the cost of allowing the scoundrel ...
— The Woman in White • Wilkie Collins

... soirees, at which she had coaxed him to play the principal role, and had in various other ways exerted herself in his behalf. It was getting to be quite fashionable to admire his quiet, unostentatious style of playing, which was so far removed from the noisy bravado and clap-trap then commonly in vogue. Even professional musicians began to indorse him, and some, who had discovered that "there was money in him," made him tempting offers for a public engagement. But, with characteristic modesty, he distrusted their verdict; ...
— Tales From Two Hemispheres • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen

... there talk them over; but that if we advanced against him with an army, he should shut his gates, and we should find him at the door of his citadel with his drawn sword." There was "no mistake about that 'ere," as Sam Weller would say. However, most of us thought it was merely bravado, as our progress was not molested at all; this, however, was afterwards accounted for by the Khan's having called in all his fighting-men ...
— Campaign of the Indus • T.W.E. Holdsworth

... them was land at a league or two, perhaps. Had the storm continued during the night they would have been dashed upon the coast. God-fearing men would have given thanks for their miraculous rescue; but not so these. Instead, the fear of death removed, they assumed their former bravado. ...
— The Mucker • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... had been big enough to read the cards in her hand. To be "a good sport" was perhaps the best lesson that the world had yet taught her. Though she could not be, he decided, more than eighteen, she had acquired already the gay bravado of the experienced gambler ...
— One Man in His Time • Ellen Glasgow

... are pessimists among us they are not to be found among the men who are doing the work. There is no foolish bravado, no under-rating of a dour opponent, but there is a quick, alert, confident attention to the job in hand which is an inspiration to the observer. These brave lads are guarding Britain in the present. See to it ...
— A Visit to Three Fronts • Arthur Conan Doyle

... was studied at the request of a judge who had continued the trial because of the manifest mental peculiarities of the defendant. We were told that his behavior varied much, that one day he would cry and apologize, and on another would show stupid bravado. As the judge stated, John had long been in disciplinary institutions and this had failed to do any good. The immediately peculiar features of the case were that while he was being held for vagrancy and robbery, John made a ...
— Pathology of Lying, Etc. • William and Mary Healy

... not deny to herself that her mission has been a failure. He has openly scoffed at her threats, and she is aware that she has not a shred of actual evidence wherewith to support her suspicion; the bravado with which he has sought to turn the tables upon herself both frightens and disheartens her, and now she confesses to herself that she knows not ...
— The Haunted Chamber - A Novel • "The Duchess"

... commin' (He goes to OLIVIA, takes out his cigarette, puts his manacled arms round her, and kisses her suddenly and violently on the mouth. He releases her with an air of bravado, puts back his cigarette, and looks at her) Well, I'm goin' to be hanged in the end.... But they'll get their money's worth at the trial. ...
— Night Must Fall • Williams, Emlyn

... "fine arts," Ward was allowed to be "the finest fighter in England." The {138} rapidity of his movements "gave amazing advantage for the display of his inimitably fine science," says the writer of the account in the Cambridge Chronicle for 1827. "On taking the champion's belt many sprung up in bravado, but none in arms sufficiently hardy to dispute his well-earned honours. At length, Peter Crawley got backed against him. Crawley was a giant and stood 6 feet, 2 inches, while Ward was 5 feet, 9 ...
— Fragments of Two Centuries - Glimpses of Country Life when George III. was King • Alfred Kingston

... All the bravado had vanished from the farmer by now. He seemed to fairly cringe before the girl. Afterwards the boys learned that there was good reason for this, since her father was Mayor Stephens, the richest man in Hazenhurst, and the ...
— The Airplane Boys among the Clouds - or, Young Aviators in a Wreck • John Luther Langworthy

... mind than I had felt for some time. A story came back by the nine o'clock post from a monthly magazine (to which I had sent it from mere bravado), but the thing did not depress me. I got out my glue-pot and began to fasten the rejection form to the wall, whistling a lively air ...
— Not George Washington - An Autobiographical Novel • P. G. Wodehouse

... unwillingness to be beaten has developed her courage. Where another can go, she can go. Her respect for physical bravery is like Stevenson's—the boy's contempt for the fellow who cries, with a touch of young bravado in it. She takes tramps in the woods, plunging through the underbrush, where she is scratched and bruised; yet you could not get her to admit that she is hurt, and you certainly could not persuade her to stay at ...
— Story of My Life • Helen Keller

... the tragedy of a broken back, but they cannot realise the tragedy of a broken heart, still less of a broken spirit. And if that heart and that spirit struggle to hide their unshed tears behind a mask of cheerfulness, or bravado, or assumed—and sometimes very real—courage, they neither can perceive it nor realise it, and the well-spring of their sympathy, should it be pointed out to them, is a very faint and uncertain trickle indeed. Most of us like to take the sorrows of other people merely at their ...
— Over the Fireside with Silent Friends • Richard King

... best not to be sent back here," said Lewis, striving to continue his bravado, although his heart was sinking as he began to realize more and more in what a predicament he had placed himself. "Such a set of muffs, teachers and scholars, I never met. No one can take a joke, or even ...
— Bessie Bradford's Prize • Joanna H. Mathews

... entirely unlike himself, as he did while strutting along with the weed in his mouth. The fact was, Eric didn't guess how much he was hurting Edwin's feelings, and he was smoking more to "make things look like the holidays," by a little bravado, than anything else. But suddenly he caught the expression of ...
— Eric, or Little by Little • Frederic W. Farrar

... blow, the Moorish Scaevola, with a fate very different from that of his Roman prototype, was pierced with a hundred wounds by the attendants, who rushed to the spot, alarmed by the cries of the marchioness, and his mangled remains were soon after discharged from a catapult into the city; a foolish bravado, which the besieged requited by slaying a Galician gentleman, and sending his corpse astride upon a mule through the gates of the town ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V2 • William H. Prescott

... the lead. He was spurring his strength to the uttermost: perhaps out of bravado; that he might show them nothing was the matter with his arm. But Mr. Carteret gained on him; and as they turned the point and went out of sight, the young man's boat was ...
— Elster's Folly • Mrs. Henry Wood

... answered, with bravado, determined to strike while the iron was hot. 'What the Daily Telephone lacks is just one enlivening ...
— Miss Cayley's Adventures • Grant Allen

... Master Gottfried; "full proofs were given in, and his investiture by the Kaisar forms a title in itself. It is mere bravado, and an endeavour to make mischief between the Baron and ...
— The Dove in the Eagle's Nest • Charlotte M. Yonge

... to that body. It ended with the statement that other nations would soon imitate France (that is by overthrowing the monarchy) and would "arm themselves for the purpose of claiming the Rights of Man."[282] This piece of bravado must have told against Frost at the trial; for it proved that amidst his potations at the tavern he spoke his real mind. Erskine did his best to defend Frost by quoting Pitt's letters to him of May 1782, on the subject of Reform.[283] ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose

... very quickly upon his long walk. He could not but feel, notwithstanding his little bravado of indifference, that it was a very important decision, which he had made irrevocable by thus publishing it. For some time it had been a certainty in his mind; but nothing seems a certainty until it has been said, and now that it had been said, the thought that he had ...
— A Country Gentleman and his Family • Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant

... pure and fresh, even to the narrow line of wristband edging his coat sleeve; his clearly cut patrician features were tranquil in every line and tint; his step was the light, yet deliberate stride of an athlete without passion or bravado. Conscious power, inexorable will, and thorough self-command were stamped upon him from crown to foot, and his salutation to the small family party accompanied a smile as mirthless and cold as ...
— At Last • Marion Harland

... frequently shot at, but never hit. Then he grew bolder, showing himself longer and longer, until finally he jumped out of the trench altogether, shouting to us wildly and waving his cap. His good-humored jollity and bravado appealed to our boys and none of them attempted to shoot at him while he presented such a splendid target. Finally one of our men, who did not want to be second in bravery, jumped out of the trench and presented himself in the full sunlight. Not one attempt was made to shoot at him either, ...
— Four Weeks in the Trenches - The War Story of a Violinist • Fritz Kreisler

... the first time in a new trench, as you do not know the danger-spots and are not even quite sure in which direction the enemy lies, for the communication-trench zigzags so. However, you generally acquire a bravado which you do not feel, for you see the old residents walking unconcernedly about, and you dare not let them see your nervousness. I remember on this morning we stepped right into hell. The "boche" evidently caught sight of one of our ...
— "Over There" with the Australians • R. Hugh Knyvett

... puzzling thing: it asked little of them, and they answered with little, and yet it ridiculed their offering. Such a paradox they could not understand, and therefore sank into listless indifference, or shiftlessness, or reckless bravado. There were, however, some such as Josie, Jim, and Ben,—they to whom War, Hell, and Slavery were but childhood tales, whose young appetites had been whetted to an edge by school and story and half-awakened thought. Ill could they be content, born without and beyond the World. And their weak wings ...
— The Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, 1995, Memorial Issue • Various

... swift transition of his terrors, the very silence of the place appeared a source of peril, and a thing to strike and freeze the passer-by; and he would step more boldly, and bustle aloud among the contents of the shop, and imitate, with elaborate bravado, the movements of a busy man at ease ...
— Short-Stories • Various

... on, surprised himself at his gallant feeling of liberty: a feeling of bravado and almost swaggering carelessness which is Italy's best gift to an Englishman. He had crossed the dividing line, and the values of life, though ostensibly and verbally the same, were dynamically different. Alas, however, the verbal and the ostensible, the accursed mechanical ...
— Aaron's Rod • D. H. Lawrence

... of his journal are devoted to an account of this war; and a most curious story it is of cowardice, bravado, and inefficiency. It was advance and retreat, boastful challenge and as boastful reply, marching and countermarching, day after day, and month after month. "Like the heroes of old, the adverse parties spoke to each other: 'We are coming, we are coming; lay aside your muskets and fight ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 110, December, 1866 - A Magazine of Literature, Science, Art, and Politics • Various

... Bradley. He has rendered me so many kind services already that I am sure I might count upon him again, but this is a thing I should like to do for myself. I would not have my thanks chilled by even the passage from my heart to his." There was something like bravado in the glance that rested lightly on Bradley with this. One would have said that parley of hearts between them was not a thing that as a rule she courted. "I can only offer you my thanks, poor things to which we can give neither life nor substance, yet I beg that ...
— The Path of a Star • Mrs. Everard Cotes (AKA Sara Jeannette Duncan)

... at being balked, strode from the path, or lane, of virtue, toward a cherry-tree, whose red fruit hung temptingly low, and his example was followed by every one of the Brigade, leaving the terrified Hicks to wait in the lane, where, because of his alarm, he had no time to wonder at the bravado of his behemoth comrades. However, finding that Bildad had disappeared, and believing he had taken Caesar Napoleon into the house, the sunny Hicks, who was far from a coward otherwise, but who had an unreasonable dread of dogs, ...
— T. Haviland Hicks Senior • J. Raymond Elderdice

... not answer at all; but for a brief moment her lip trembled. Amid all this merriment she had sat with a troubled face, and with a sore and heavy heart. She had seen in it but a pathetic bravado. He would drink Scotch whiskey—he would once more light a cigarette—merely to assure her that he was getting thoroughly well again; his laughter, his jokes, his wild sallies were all meant, and she knew it, to give her strength of heart and cheerfulness. She sat and listened, with her ...
— The Galaxy - Vol. 23, No. 1 • Various

... doing what he believed to be right, and what posterity admits to have been so. Mr. Webster never appeared to better advantage, and he never made a more manly speech than on this occasion, when, without any bravado, he quietly set the influence and the threats ...
— Daniel Webster • Henry Cabot Lodge

... quiet, unaccentuated manner in which she had given her own share in the action she gave Diane's. Shading her eyes with the hand-screen, she was able to watch his play of feature, and note how the first forced smile of bravado faded into an ...
— The Inner Shrine • Basil King

... first in that costume and in that new garb. He arose, came to me, and with his moist hand irresolutely and weakly seized my hand, and sat down by me. Instead of looking at me, though he apparently seemed so glad to see me, he gazed with an expression of unfriendly bravado at ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: Russian • Various

... on trembling, while Carl became nervous again, then gaily defiant, then nervous again, till the alternation of gloom and bravado disgusted him and made Ruth wonder whether he was an office-slave or a freebooter. As he happened to be both at the time, it was hard for him to be either convincingly. She accused him of vacillating; he retorted; the suspense kept ...
— The Trail of the Hawk - A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life • Sinclair Lewis

... you quite sure that at bottom his attitude is not induced by anger, by wounded vanity, by disappointment, and perhaps by a little bravado? Possibly he will behave himself better in future. To-night he is at the Opra. The Santelli has scored a great success in "Mahomet," and I think she has invited him to supper after the performance. Now, if the supper ...
— A Comedy of Marriage & Other Tales • Guy De Maupassant

... acute Ezekiel managed to get of the stranger, however, was productive of no further discovery than that he bore a faint and disreputable resemblance to Blandford, and was handsome after a conscious, reckless fashion, with an air of mingled bravado and conceit. But an hour later, as Corwin was taking the cooler air of the veranda before retiring to one of the miraculous beds of the posada, he was amazed at seeing what was apparently Blandford himself emerge on horseback from the alley, and after a quick glance towards the veranda, ...
— The Argonauts of North Liberty • Bret Harte

... said Wankin, then in a brave burst of bravado he said, "Damn it all! I'll let you go by. It's hard to stew dry so near the bar!" An hour later the young man set off towards home, and on his way he met two of ...
— The Amateur Army • Patrick MacGill

... we reached the ranchito where the girl lived. We asked him if he had any friends at this ranch whom he wished to see. This he denied. When we informed him that by special request a lady wished to bid him farewell, he lost some of his bluster and bravado. We all dismounted, leaving one man outside with the other two prisoners, and entered a small yard where the girl lived. Our half-blood aroused her and called her out to meet her friend, El Lobo. The girl delayed us some minutes, and we apologized to him for the necessity of irons ...
— Cattle Brands - A Collection of Western Camp-fire Stories • Andy Adams

... meet away from their post. About six o'clock in the evening a red-tuft volunteer presented himself at the gate of the palace, and ordered the porter to sweep the courtyard, saying that the volunteers were going to get up a ball for the dragoons. After this piece of bravado he went away, and in a few moments a note arrived, couched in the ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... of wheat that give bread and of the wine that gives joy, which is the moral make-up of the Valencian peasant. He is sincerely indignant about the agrarian system, about social inequality, and is full of the revolutionary bravado of ...
— Rosinante to the Road Again • John Dos Passos

... Apparently this reckless bravado entirely suited the ship's company, for one of the men who had heard the doughty captain's speech called for three cheers, which were given ...
— For Love of Country - A Story of Land and Sea in the Days of the Revolution • Cyrus Townsend Brady

... came to fighting the Iroquois in their own forests. At the rendezvous across the lake from Cataraqui the French and their allies mustered nearly three thousand men. Denonville had none of his predecessor's bravado coupled with cowardice; his plans were carried forward with a precision worthy of Frontenac. Unlike Frontenac, however he had a scant appreciation of the skill with which the red man could get out of the way in the ...
— Crusaders of New France - A Chronicle of the Fleur-de-Lis in the Wilderness - Chronicles of America, Volume 4 • William Bennett Munro

... and on that plea being overruled, submitted with his usual calmness and dignity. The execution, with indecent haste, was ordered to take place on the following morning. In this last stage of life, his greatness of mind shone with even more than its usual lustre. Calm, and fearless without bravado, his behavior and speech expressed the piety and resignation of a Christian, with the habitual coolness of one who has braved death too often to shrink at its approach. His farewell to his faithful wife was manly, tender, ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 1 of 8 • Various

... excesses. The altered character too, of his letters in this respect cannot fail, I think, to be remarked by the reader,—there being, with an evident increase of intellectual vigour, a tone of violence and bravado breaking out in them continually, which marks the high pitch of re-action to which he had now wound up ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. IV - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore

... certainly we were not sorry, from mere compassion; for what would she have done with all three? If I laughed at their extra touches to their dresses, it did not prevent me from bestowing unusual attention on my own. And by way of bravado, when I was carried down, I insisted on Mrs. Badger lending me her arm, to let me walk into the parlor and prove to Colonel Steadman that in spite of his prophecies I was able to take ...
— A Confederate Girl's Diary • Sarah Morgan Dawson

... evening. And, moreover, she could quite understand the impulse that sent an innocent man to toss a handkerchief into the fire and let them ponder on the act's significance. The act may have been foolhardy and certainly had the youthful flavour of bravado; none the less in her eyes the man achieved through ...
— Six Feet Four • Jackson Gregory

... are our wives and daughters. We ought to be able to do what we always have done, direct them and control them through their affections," said Acres, turning up the ends of his moustache with a kind of bantam bravado. ...
— The Co-Citizens • Corra Harris

... bravado, but he ate well. They started drinking again. Yakob looked at them with eagerness, his arms folded over his stomach, his head bent forward; the hairy hand of the captain put the ...
— Selected Polish Tales • Various

... of royal bravado, but finer still, and worked up with a truly Oriental exuberance of fancy and imagery, is her famous description of Antony, addressed ...
— Characteristics of Women - Moral, Poetical, and Historical • Anna Jameson

... shouts of "Damned Jew!" "Christ-killer!" and sick their dogs at him. As we had no dogs to defend us, orthodox Jews being prohibited from keeping these domestic animals by a custom amounting to a religious injunction, our boys never ventured into the place except, perhaps, in a spirit of dare-devil bravado ...
— The Rise of David Levinsky • Abraham Cahan



Words linked to "Bravado" :   flash, bluster, fanfare, ostentation



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