Swag-belly, subs. phr. (old).—A very fat man or woman; a swing-paunch. [Swag = to weigh heavily.] Hence swaggy (or swag-bellied) = fat, forty-gutted (q.v.).
1530. Palsgrave, Langue Francoyse. I swagge, as a fatte persons belly swaggeth as he goth.
1602. Shakspeare, Othello, ii. 3. I learned it in England, where, indeed, they are most potent in potting: your Dane, your German, and your swag-bellied Hollander . . . are nothing to your English.
1646. Browne, Vulg. Errors, iii. iv. His swaggy and prominent belly.
1694. Motteux, Rabelais, v. 'Pant. Prog.,' v. However, so many swagbellies and puff-bags will hardly go to St Hiacco, as there did in the year 524.
1886. Oliphant, New English, i. 462. The swagge of 1303 [see quot. 1530] is here used of a fat man's belly; hence the swag-bellied Hollander, and also the later swagger.
Swagger, subs. and verb. (once
literary: now colloquial: B. E.
and Grose).—Bluster; bravado;
roaring insolence; side (q.v.).
As verb = to strut defiantly; to
boast; to bluster; to affect or
obtrude superiority: see quot.
1898. Also derivatives such as
swaggerer and swaggering.
1598. Florio, Worlde of Wordes, s.v. Ruffo . . . Also a ruffling roister or ruffian, a swaggrer.
1598. Shakspeare, 2 Hen. IV., ii. 4. Your ancient swaggerer comes not in my doors. Ibid. (1599), Hen. V., iv. 7. 131. A rascal that swaggered with me last night.
1607. Dekker, Northward Ho, iv. 1. A swaggering fellow, sir, that speaks not like a man of God's making, swears he must speak with you, and will speak with you.
1612. Rowlands, Hist. Rogues [Ribton-Turner, 582]. They chose a notable swaggering rogue called Puffing Dicke to reuell over them.
c. 1622. Heywood, Fair Maid of the West [Pearson, Works, (1894), ii. 279]. Can we not live in compasse of the Law, But must be swaggered out on't?
1636. Davenant, Wits, i. 2. And swagger in the wool [that] we shall borrow from our own flocks.
1678. Cudworth, Intellectual System, 61. It was Atheism openly swaggering, under the glorious appearance of wisdom and philosophy.
1699. Dryden, Cox and Fox, 443. [He] swaggereth like a lord about his hall.
1725. Swift, Will Wood's Petition. The butcher is stout, and he values no swagger. Ibid. Court and Empire of Japan. He would swagger the boldest man into a dread of his power.
1765. Goldsmith, Essays, x. The bunters who swagger in the streets of London.
1809. Malkin, Gil Blas, 136. She could put on as brazen-faced a swagger as the most impudent dog in town.
1835. Marryatt, Pacha of Many Tales. 'The Water Carrier.' It requires but an impudent swagger and you are taken on your own representation.
1844. Thackeray, Barry Lyndon, xv. As for the swagger . . . I deny it in toto, being always most modest in my demeanour.
1880. Payn, Confid. Agent, xi. The captain [put] . . . a good deal of side on, which became a positive swagger as he emerged into the more fashionable street.
1898. Warner, Harrow School, 280. The rules of 'swagger' or [side] are most complex. . . . And a new boy is apt to find himself entangled. He goes out with his umbrella rolled up . . . or carries it by its middle, or under his arm, or he walks on the middle terrace after chapel, or he innocently wears his 'blues' open when it is hot, or turns his trousers up when it is wet, and . . . he is swaggering. Lady visitors sometimes think small boys at Harrow rude . . . to stick close to the wall . . . and shoulder the world into the gutter—it is modesty; to walk in the road is swagger. To loiter at the house door, or to sing or whistle in the passages, and to wear a hat in the house are also forms of swagger.
1901. Walker, In the Blood, 107. He wore a new cricketing belt round his loins, as low down as he could get it to go; the lower down the greater assumption of 'push' swagger.
