Walking with stiff, proud movements or displaying oneself in a confident, showy way.
From Middle English 'strout,' possibly from Old Norse 'strúta,' meaning 'to stand stiffly or strut'; the image of a bird puffing itself up perfectly captures this behavior.
Peacocks and pigeons strut by puffing up their feathers to look bigger and more impressive—so when we call a person 'strutting,' we're literally comparing them to a bird doing a display to attract mates or assert dominance.
Strutting carries gendered performance coding—historically applied to men as confident dominance display, to women as vanity or sexual provocation. The asymmetry reflects cultural double standards in how bodies moving through space are interpreted.
Use 'strutting' descriptively for any gender when describing confident movement, but recognize it may carry different audience readings depending on context and subject gender.
["walking with confidence","moving purposefully","displaying assurance"]
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