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Is there a single word(verb) to describe the action "to walk angrily with long steps without giving respect other people"?

I found these three words which seem to be a close match for what I'm looking for: swagger, strut and stride. But I'm not sure which one of these I should use, or is there another other word that's better?

6 Answers 6

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I suggest the phrasal verb storm off, which encompasses the idea of leaving with anger. I find the use of lope to be at odds with the need for anger in the motion, since a lope is "a long, easy stride; a leisurely canter"; ease and leisureliness are not compatible with anger.

As StoneyB says, I don't think you can get everything all into one word or even one phrasal verb; you will need additional description for the part where others are treated disrespectfully. Other options for that portion could be elbowing people aside, barreling through the crowd, or even heedless of the people in his way.

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    I agree – lopes is not a good word for an angry march. The verb stomps would be much better.
    – J.R.
    May 31, 2013 at 23:16
  • @Hellion I'd say you can also storm into or through a room/crowd/venue; anything with a preposition describing the direction of movement should suffice (eg: "He stormed angrily about his office before finally sitting down and replying with a very forceful email")
    – DGinzberg
    May 1, 2014 at 21:25
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Stomp

I think you'll find 'stomp' perfect for use in this context.

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None of these words will fully serve your purpose.

  • Stride includes the notion of long steps.
  • Swagger and strut both include the notion of pride, but this is more an exaggerated regard for oneself than any direct disrespect for another.
  • None of these words includes the notion of anger.

I doubt that any one English verb will convey all these notions. You will have to pick a verb which conveys the most important one, and add modifiers which convey the others. For instance:

He paced angrily forward; his humiliated followers could only scurry behind, unable to keep up with him.
He raged up and down in long strides, shouldering aside anyone who stood in his path.
He sneered and loped off in evident anger.

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  • Okay, I tried to form a sentence with lope and shouldering, like below. Are these combination makes sense and common among native speaker? 1. He lopes off shouldering John and Mike. 2. He loped off shouldering John and Mike. 3. He lopes shouldering John and Mike. 4. He loped shouldering John and Mike.
    – T2E
    May 31, 2013 at 1:46
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    @T2E Shoulder is used transitively only of burdens. Here you need to use shoulder them aside or out of his way or past them or something of that sort. "Common"? All of my suggestions are sort of on the literary side, particularly lope. May 31, 2013 at 1:53
  • Thanks, I rewrote it as "He lopes off in evident anger, shouldering John and Mike out of his way"
    – T2E
    May 31, 2013 at 2:05
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One could plough through a crowd, angrily or not.

One might barge past some onlookers - to barge implies rudeness or indifference. see also "he barged into the room, uninvited"

I could also bull my way through the crowd

My ex-wife often stormed away in her anger at me and I would storm off in a fit of fury.

If you do so loudly, you might be said to thunder through or thunder past the startled onlookers.

A sense of *Charged angrily" would work too: In a fury, he charged through the crowd.

Hope it helps.

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I don't know of a single word in my American dialect that quite captures it. But

He stormed off

works pretty well if your person is leaving a room, or a group of people in a huff. It's frequently used in that context.

"Stride" suggests a person walking quickly, but doesn't imply anger.

A silly woman leaving a situation in anger over something trivial, who wants everyone to see her leaving angry, can "flounce" away. But dignified people don't flounce, and men don't either.

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  • Flouncing may be gendered female, but I am quite certain I have seen men flounce. May 2, 2014 at 1:32
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I think that stalked is the perfect word….i.e. stalked across the room

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    Stalking is moving sneakily like a cat, not at all what OP needs. May 1, 2014 at 16:45
  • I agree with @Tyler and wonder if stomped was the intended word.
    – J.R.
    May 1, 2014 at 16:51
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    Perhaps not across the room, but a simple search for "stalked out of the room" certainly yields results where the person in question is doing so angrily, @J.R. It comes up in the context of cold anger and disrespect-through-perfect-respect. (That's not a defense of the other low-quality aspects of this answer, but I don't believe it to be factually incorrect in the same way you and Tyler do.) May 1, 2014 at 17:39
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    @JonathanGarber - Excellent comment; you've convinced me. It's interesting how stalk is an autoantonym of sorts.
    – J.R.
    May 1, 2014 at 21:28
  • Although this answer has two downvotes, I upvoted it. It sounds fine to my ear. And in the Oxford Collocations Dictionary, I see examples like "He scowled at her before stalking out of the room" and "She stalked off, leaving them all staring after her" where no stealth is implied.
    – user230
    May 1, 2014 at 21:49

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