How to Use saber-rattling in a Sentence

saber-rattling

noun
  • Then there’s his saber-rattling director against the Maduro regime.
    — John Seiler, Oc Register, 23 Nov. 2025
  • For example, the Kremlin has toned down its nuclear saber-rattling.
    — Sergey Radchenko, Foreign Affairs, 4 Dec. 2025
  • So, against the background of Zapad and its attendant saber-rattling, Lukashenko may be playing good cop to Putin’s bad cop.
    — Nathan Hodge, CNN Money, 12 Sep. 2025
  • Yet American economic saber-rattling could alter this calculus.
    — Hamidreza Azizi, Time, 29 Aug. 2026
  • Centuries of wars and saber-rattling between the Swedish and Russian empires created hardship for Finns and Karelians alike.
    — Thomas A. Dubois, The Conversation, 4 Feb. 2026
  • As the exit plan appeared to be taking more concrete shape on Wednesday, the AGs office again accused Paramount of saber-rattling.
    — Dominic Patten, Deadline, 16 Sep. 2026
  • The schedule saber-rattling may put Notre Dame at risk, assuming the CFP doesn’t expand by 2028.
    — Pete Sampson, New York Times, 23 July 2026
  • Expansion could quiet college coaches’ saber-rattling about canceling marquee nonconference games.
    — Pete Sampson, New York Times, 13 May 2026
  • And for all of Iran’s saber-rattling, its closure of the Strait of Hormuz is not a sophisticated financial weapon aimed at the dollar’s structural foundations.
    — Nick Lichtenberg, Fortune, 24 Mar. 2026
  • The question is whether this event, which featured a lot of emotion, grandstanding and saber-rattling — at times from secondary and tertiary characters who did not sound fully informed on the issues — brings college sports any closer to a solution.
    — Nicki Jhabvala, New York Times, 7 Mar. 2026
  • Cinematographer Adolpho Velso captures their saber-rattling with soft lighting and asymmetric framing that, fittingly, comes across as both warm and oddly alienating.
    — Damon Wise, Deadline, 19 Feb. 2026
  • Contemporary tensions have been reflected in just the past week, with nuclear saber-rattling between Russia and the United States over Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.
    — Brad Lendon, CNN Money, 5 Aug. 2025
  • Meanwhile, Chinese online commentators with links to the Chinese government have engaged in saber-rattling, vowing decisive military action against Japanese forces in the event of a hypothetical intervention.
    — Micah McCartney, MSNBC Newsweek, 17 Nov. 2025
  • Given the riskier threat environment in East Asia due to China’s regional hegemonic ambitions and North Korea’s nuclear saber-rattling, Tokyo has little negotiating leverage.
    — Jeff Kingston, Time, 4 Oct. 2025
  • The status of further peace talks and other key details of the current relationship between the warring powers have grown increasingly opaque, with Trump vacillating between resuming saber-rattling rhetoric and indicating Washington’s readiness for additional negotiations with Iran.
    — Anniek Bao, CNBC, 21 Apr. 2026
  • Advertisement The latest Japan-China spat is reminiscent of the late Shinzo Abe’s speech at Davos in 2014 about the risk of sleepwalking to war, remarks that were then widely interpreted as saber-rattling toward China.
    — Jeff Kingston, Time, 30 Nov. 2025
  • At the National People’s Congress this week, Premier Li Qiang issued a government work report that suggested an escalation in saber-rattling against the island territory, which self-conceptualizes as sovereign but is claimed by Beijing.
    — Timothy Nerozzi, The Washington Examiner, 8 Mar. 2026
  • President Vladimir Putin and other Russian officials have frequently engaged in nuclear saber-rattling since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in order to deter Western countries from sending military aid to Kyiv, reported The Moscow Times.
    — Prabhat Ranjan Mishra, Interesting Engineering, 20 May 2026
  • Trump’s tariff saber-rattling may become less effective after this week if the Supreme Court—which is scheduled to release a new batch of decisions on cases heard in 2025 on Wednesday—announces an unfavorable ruling for the president’s International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) duties.
    — Kate Nishimura, Sourcing Journal, 13 Jan. 2026

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'saber-rattling.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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