Swagger: definition and overview

Swagger: Verb: To walk or conduct oneself with an insolent or arrogant air; strut. (Barrow, 2010)

'Swagger' may actually not even be as new as we think it to be. William Shakespeare invented an incredible 1,7000 new English words many of which we still use today -- and one of these was swagger, first used in A Midsummer Night's Dream (1590). (Others include bump, first used in Romeo and Juliet, obscene, first used in Love's Labor's lost, and luggage, first used in King Henry IV, Part I) (The Atlantic 'Swagger' and Other Everyday Words Invented by Famous Authors). The etymology of 'swagger' although mostly connected nowadays to walk actually originates form the term 'swag' which means to brag or boast. The noun of 'swag' is dated to 1725 (Online Etymology Dictionary)

'Swagger' was used for a long time. It circulated in rap in the 1990s when Sadat X of Brand Nubian used the word on "Slow Down" from One for All (1990) referring to it there as a strut. Later, the same artists used it in the line "kid with mouth swagger" on the hit "Punks Jump Up to Get Beat Down" from In God We Trust (1993) (Wickman, 2012). But it really came into mode in approximately 2003 when it was used by "PSA" by Jay-Z when he bragged,

"Check out my swag' yo, I walk like a ballplayer

No matter where you go, you are what you are player"(Barrow, 2010)

Jay-Z boasts that he invented the term. In fact, on the Watch the Throne track "Otis," he boasts, "I invented swag." (Wickman, 2012) as he says that he invented 'swagger' in "back "from The Blueprint (2001). But, legend in fact is that Jay-Z adopted it from Keith Murray's "I Got My Swagger Back" extracted from his song He's Keith Murray.

Jay-Z used the term readily as in his other song "December 4"where he writes "My self-esteem went through the roof, man / I got my swag."

'Swagger' before long started jockeying other words out. 'Biting' became known as "swagger jacking." And Aaron Carter produced a song called 'Swaged up."

Up-and-comer Soulja Boy, too, used the term a lot when he sang his rap song "She likes my swag," (Souljaboytellem.com). On 'Swag', a song never released, he used the term about 100 times (Wickman, 2012). Later in 2008, he launched his phrase "Turn My Swag On,"

The word 'swagger' may have reached its peak in 2008 when T.I. Jay-Z, Kanye West and Lil Wayne produced the song "Swagga Like Us." In that same year, teenage popstar, Justin Beiber proudly proclaimed that he had a 'swagger coach', and used it in his 'Boyfriend' when he sang "swag, swag, swag on you." (Wickman, 2012). In that same year mention came out about a Swagger Wagon too showing that it had transplanted itself to other fields.