swear like a trooper
Freely utter profanity or obscenity, as in The teacher was shocked when she heard one of the fathers begin to swear like a trooper. The troopers in this term were the cavalry, who were singled out for their swearing from the early 1700s on.
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Nearby words
- swear,
- swear at,
- swear by,
- swear in,
- swear jar,
- swear off,
- swear on a stack of bibles,
- swear out,
- swear to,
- swear word
The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary
Copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.