rattle sabers

To make aggressive, blustering, and typically empty threats. I'd like to think that the country's threats of nuclear extermination are just them rattling sabers, but I'm not too sure anymore. The boss just likes to rattle sabers every now and then to make herself feel powerful.

rattle sabres

threaten to take aggressive action.

See also: rattle, sabre

Farlex Partner Idioms Dictionary © Farlex 2017

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References in periodicals archive

China likes to rattle sabers over the island it views as a breakaway province, periodically threatening to crush Taiwan with its overwhelmingly superior military forces.

The Emerging Sino-Russian Axis - Invading Taiwan

can rattle sabers well enough, but stop at the brink when appropriate--machismo doesn't have to rule.

Clinton's foreign policy: solid and consistent

Although Sir John is necessarily aware of the heated historiographical debates that aspects of his subject have aroused in recent decades, he seems reluctant to rattle sabers himself, and his judicious conclusions often take the form of passing asides.

Marriage, Debt and the Estates System: English Landownership, 1650-1950

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