sabre-rattling

• saber-rattling (mostly US)

From the early 20th century, when an officer would threaten to draw his sabre.

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sabre-rattling (countable and uncountable, plural sabre-rattlings)

1. (idiomatic) A flamboyant display of military power as an implied threat that it might be used.
2. (idiomatic, figuratively) Any threat, such as one company threatening another with a lawsuit.

• gunboat diplomacy

sabre-rattling (comparative more sabre-rattling, superlative most sabre-rattling)

1. Bellicose; threatening military action.
   • 2002, Colin Jones, The Great Nation, Penguin 2003, p. 121:

     But it excited much discontent in sabre-rattling court circles which regarded Austrophilia as the most un-French of diplomatic perversions.

• saber rattling, saber-rattling