bluster

Etymology

From Middle English blusteren (“to wander about aimlessly”); however, apparently picking up the modern sense from Middle Low German blüstren (“to blow violently”; compare later Low German blustern, blistern). Related to blow, blast. Compare also Saterland Frisian bloasje (“to blow”), bruusje (“to bluster”).

noun

1. Pompous, officious talk.
   Private-equity nabobs bristle at being dubbed mere financiers. Piling debt onto companies’ balance-sheets is only a small part of what leveraged buy-outs are about, they insist. Improving the workings of the businesses they take over is just as core to their calling, if not more so. Much of their pleading is public-relations bluster. 2013-06-22, “Engineers of a different kind”, in The Economist, volume 407, number 8841, page 70
2. A gust of wind.
3. Fitful noise and violence.

verb

1. To speak or protest loudly.
   When confronted by opposition his reaction was to bluster, which often cowed the meek.
2. To act or speak in an unduly threatening manner.
   He bloweth and blustereth out […] his abominable blasphemy. 1532, Thomas More, Confutation of Tyndale's Answer
3. To blow in strong or sudden gusts.