different between straggle vs swagger

English

Etymology

From Middle English straglen, of uncertain origin.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?st?æ?l?/
• Rhymes: -æ??l
• Hyphenation: strag?gle

Verb

straggle (third-person singular simple present straggles, present participle straggling, simple past and past participle straggled)

1. To stray from the road, course or line of march.

   He straggled away from the crowd and went off on his own.

2. To wander about; ramble.
3. To spread at irregular intervals.
4. To escape or stretch beyond proper limits, as the branches of a plant; to spread widely apart; to shoot too far or widely in growth.

   • Trim off the small, superfluous branches on each side of the hedge that straggle too far out.

5. To be dispersed or separated; to occur at intervals.
   • They came between Scylla and Charybdis and the straggling rocks.

Derived terms

• (noun) straggler
• (adverb) stragglingly

Translations

Noun

straggle (plural straggles)

1. An irregular, spread-out group.
2. An outlier; something that has strayed beyond the normal limits.
   • 1858 Thomas Carlyle, History of Friedrich II of Prussia

     Nevertheless there is a straggle of pungent sense in it, — like the outskirts of lightning, seen in that dismally wet weather, which the Royal Party had.

English

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /?swæ?.?/
• (US) IPA^(key): /?swæ?.?/
• Rhymes: -æ??(r)

Etymology 1

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?

Verb

swagger (third-person singular simple present 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, Benjamin Disraeli, Sybil

     a man who swaggers about London clubs

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.

   • 1724, Jonathan Swift, The Drapier’s Letters, Dublin and London, 1730, Letter 1, p. 14,^[1]

     For the common Soldier when he goes to the Market or Ale-house will offer this Money, and if it be refused, perhaps he will SWAGGER and HECTOR, and Threaten to Beat the BUTCHER or Ale-Wife, or take the Goods by Force, and throw them the bad HALF-PENCE.
3. To walk with a swaying motion.

Derived terms

• swaggerer
• swaggeringly
• swagger it
• aswagger

Translations

Noun

swagger (countable and uncountable, plural swaggers)

1. Confidence, pride.
2. A bold or arrogant strut.
3. A prideful boasting or bragging.

Translations

Adjective

swagger (comparative more swagger, superlative most 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.

Etymology 2

Noun

swagger (plural swaggers)

1. (Australia, New Zealand, historical) Synonym of swagman

References

Anagrams

• waggers