drawcansir

draw•can•sir (draw-CAN-suhr)  n
often capitalized

Definition:
a blustering, bullying fellow; a pot-valiant braggart; a bully

Origin:
from the name of a character in the play The Rehearsal (1671) by George Villiers (1628-1687), 2nd Duke of Buckingham. The character was apparently named for his potvaliant tendencies: Draw can (of liquor). The play was a satire on poet John Dryden's inflated tragedies and the character of Drawcansir was modeled as a parody of Almanzor in Dryden's Conquest of Granada. Dryden in turn lampooned Villiers in a passage in his poem Absalom and Achitophel (1681)

Related:
Synonyms: braggart, bully

Sentence Examples:
• The large stage blusterer and ostentatious drawcansir were never, in Lamb's estimation, models for heroes. -Charles Lamb, Barry Cornwall

• But to leave the criticisms of this literary drawcansir to that oblivion to which they seem to be rapidly hastening, let us examine the merits of Barry in some of those characters in which he was universally allowed to excel; and on this scale we must give the preference to Othello. -The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, 1810

• The trumpets again sounded--the lists were opened. The arrogant nephew and his two drawcansir uncles appeared so completely cased in steel that they and their steeds were like moving masses of iron. When they understood the stranger knight to be the same that had rescued the duchess from her peril, they greeted him with the most boisterous derision. -The Crayon Papers, by Washington Irving

Sources: Free Dictionary, Wordsmith

Word-E: A Word-A-Day