truculent
adjective
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Truculent derives from truculentus, a form of the Latin adjective trux, meaning "savage." It has been used in English since the 16th century to describe people or things that are cruel and ferocious, such as tyrannical leaders, and has also come to mean "deadly or destructive" (as in "a truculent disease"). In current use, however, it has lost much of its etymological fierceness. It now frequently serves to describe speech or writing that is notably harsh (as in "truculent criticism") or a person who is notably self-assertive and surly ("a truculent schoolboy"). Some usage commentators have criticized these extended uses because they do not match the savagery of the word's original sense, but they are well-established and perfectly standard.
Synonyms
Examples of truculent in a Sentence
Simon Schama, New York Review of Books, 28 Feb. 2002
Milton—in his prose an opinionated and truculent writer—remains a magnet for opinionated and truculent criticism.
—Helen Vendler, New Republic, 30 July 2001
Within a year of publishing The Female Eunuch, she had debated Norman Mailer in a truculent disputation at Town Hall in New York, turned up on the cover of Life magazine as the "saucy feminist that even men like," and inspired innumerable women to stop wearing underpants.
—Margaret Talbot, New Republic, 31 May 1999
… in the breast pocket of her police uniform she carried a small silver figurine of Durga, the Hindu goddess of shakti: power and strength. Defiant and truculent, she flashed a cheeky grin.
—Mary Anne Weaver, Atlantic, November 1996
Challenged to a fight by a truculent layabout on the playing fields of St. James's primary school one Saturday, he had replied to his aggressor's taunts with his own war cries …
—Wole Soyinka, Isara, 1989
die-hard fans who became truculent and violent after their team's loss
a theater critic who was notorious for his titanically truculent reviews
Jessica Kiang, Variety, 5 July 2024
Needing Maher’s truculent approval to sustain their own arguments, they’re defined by their enemy.
—Armond White, National Review, 7 June 2024
Little kids squirm in makeshift beds trying to stay awake for Santa, while truculent teenagers sneak out into the suburban night to do secret teenager things.
—Jessica Kiang, Variety, 17 May 2024
Russia’s truculent and obstructionist foreign policy under President Vladimir Putin comes from a sense of having lost the Cold War in the 1980s and having suffered the consequences of the defeat in the 1990s.
—Odd Arne Westad, Foreign Affairs, 27 Mar. 2018
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Cite this Entry
“Truculent.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/truculent. Accessed 30 Nov. 2024.
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truculent
adjective
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