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truculent

UK/ˈtɹʌk.jʊ.lənt/US/ˈtɹʌk.jə.lənt/
adjectiveC2Rare in speech; mostly a word you read · #14,300 of 15,258neutralformal · an editor’s judgement

Truculent means aggressively defiant and ready to argue. Arms folded, chin out, and looking for a fight.

It describes manner rather than action, so a truculent teenager or a truculent response is challenging without necessarily doing anything. The word is formal and slightly literary. Its Latin root means fierce or savage, which is a good deal stronger than the modern sense. Belligerent is the close neighbour and is more openly aggressive, while sullen is silent where truculent answers back.

Definitions of truculent

  1. 1adjectivetruculentDefiant and aggressively ready to argue.C2

    “He was truculent with every official he met.”

Where it comes from

Truculent has softened. Latin trux meant fierce or wild and truculentus meant savage, so the word has come down from cruelty to mere belligerence.

  1. Proto-Indo-European

    *twerḱ-

  2. Latin

    truculentus — fierce, savage

  3. English, today

    truculent

Built from

  • trux · Latin — fierce, wild

First attested circa 1540, from Middle French -, from Latin truculentus (“fierce, savage”), from trux (“fierce, wild”).

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in A Man Called Ove

First appears in chapter 17 of A Man Called Ove.

Practise this word

truculent in the wild

  • The supporting cast features Lee Marvin as Chino, truculent leader of the motorcycle gang "The Beetles".

    The Wild One

From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.