English

Adjective

truculent ‎(comparative more truculent, superlative most truculent)

1. Cruel or savage.

   When we were touring on a riverboat near Dandong, the truculent North Korean soldiers from the other side of the river gave us a steely-eyed death stare.

2. Deadly or destructive.
3. Defiant or uncompromising.
4. Eager or quick to argue, fight or start a conflict.
   • 1992, Joel Feinberg, “The Social Importance of Moral Rights” in Philosophical Perspectives VI (Ethics, 1992), page 195:

     It is an important source of the value of moral rights then that — speaking very generally — they dispose people with opposed interests to be reasonable rather than arrogant and truculent.

   • 2010, Seal Team 6 Member, in Esquire Magazine "The Man Who Killed Osama bin Laden..."

     (Refering to women in Bin Laden's compound) "These bitches is getting truculent".

Quotations

• 1847, Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre, ch VI,

  In her turn, Helen Burns asked me to explain, and I proceeded forthwith to pour out, in my own way, the tale of my sufferings and resentments. Bitter and truculent when excited, I spoke as I felt, without reserve or softening.

• 1860-1861, Charles Dickens, Great Expectations, ch XLVI,

  She really was a most charming girl, and might have passed for a captive fairy, whom that truculent Ogre, Old Barley, had pressed into his service.

• 1895, H. G. Wells, The Wheels of Chance, ch 10,

  Most of them were little dramatic situations, crucial dialogues, the return of Mr. Hoopdriver to his native village, for instance, in a well-cut holiday suit and natty gloves, the unheard asides of the rival neighbours, the delight of the old 'mater,' the intelligence—"A ten-pound rise all at once from Antrobus, mater. Whad d'yer think of that?" or again, the first whispering of love, dainty and witty and tender, to the girl he served a few days ago with sateen, or a gallant rescue of generalised beauty in distress from truculent insult or ravening dog.

• 1914, Edgar Rice Burroughs, The Beasts of Tarzan, ch 10,

  If he came too close to a she with a young baby, the former would bare her great fighting fangs and growl ominously, and occasionally a truculent young bull would snarl a warning if Tarzan approached while the former was eating.

• 1922,Rafael Sabatini, Captain Blood: His Odyssy, ch XVI,

  Cahusac appeared to be having it all his own way, and he raised his harsh, querulous voice so that all might hear his truculent denunciation.

• 1925, Richard Henry Tawney, "Introduction", to Thomas Wilson A discourse upon usury by way of dialogue and orations: for the better variety and more delight of all those that shall read this treatise (1572); Classics of social and political science [Page 2]

  Whatever his prejudices — and his book shows that they were tough — the most truculent of self-made capitalists could not have criticised him as a child in matters of finance. He had tried commercial cases, negotiated commercial treaties, ...

Synonyms

• (cruel or savage):: barbarous, cruel, ferocious, fierce, savage
• (deadly or destructive):: deadly, destructive
• (defiant or uncompromising):: defiant, inflexible, stubborn, uncompromising, unyielding
• (Eager or quick to argue, fight or start a conflict): belligerent

Related terms

• truculence
• truculency
• truculently

Translations

See also

• belligerent

Anagrams

• unclutter

French

Etymology

From Latin truculentus ‎(“fierce, savage”), from trux ‎(“fierce, wild”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /tʁy.ky.lɑ̃/

Adjective

truculent m ‎(feminine singular truculente, masculine plural truculents, feminine plural truculentes)

1. violent or belligerent in a colorful, over-the-top or memorable fashion
2. picturesque

Verb

truculent

1. third-person plural present indicative of truculer
2. third-person plural present subjunctive of truculer