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  • Adj.

truculent

TRUHK-yuh-luhnt

Context
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Old European tales are filled with truculent, bullying, and aggressive characters who argue a great deal. Who could forget the grumpy, bad-tempered, and truculent troll who jealously guarded the passage across his stone bridge in “The Three Billy Goats Gruff?” Also memorable is the savage, hostile, truculent giant in “Jack and the Beanstalk” who chases Jack down from his castle in the sky, swinging his club in violent anger.

Quiz: When is someone truculent?

  • When he is part of a tale that is untrue.
  • When he is hopeless or lost, and does not know what to do.
  • When he acts in an aggressive and quarrelsome way.

Memory Hook
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Truculent Violent Truck Imagine truculent Chuck as a violent truck and you'll understand why he's a bully of students and teachers alike.

Examples
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  • Steinbrenner’s truculent, the-boss-is-always-right style created epic clashes with his managers and players, not the least of which was with Billy Martin, whom he dumped as manager five times. — TIME
  • The whole parchment-butter-flour thing isn’t really hard, I know, but for some reason I become truculent at the prospect and don’t want to do it. — Cooking Light
  • Lincoln could have told them what those words meant, for he had had firsthand experience in these weary three years of civil war with truculent generals and hibernating armies. — The New York Times
  • Because the rulers saw the propitious benefits of Christianity, they, and not so much the Church, ended the truculent antics of the pagan troglodytes. — The Washington Post

Word Ingredients
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truc ferocious, grim, savage
-ulent rich in, full of

A truculent person is “full of savagery” or “rich in ferocity.”

Word Theater
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Are You Being Served Mrs. Slocum is certainly truculent!
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Word Constellation
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Truculent