swear like a trooper

In real, traceable use. Part of the curated seed collection; community review is coming.

Meaning · English

To swear a lot; to utter many swear words.

Where it’s used: Used American English

Examples

The fact that she could swear like a trooper and at one point told a nurse that I was a security guard escaping from a hijack attempt, also helped.
I could tell he was angry because he was red in the face and his fists were clenched and he was swearing like a trooper.

British National Corpus sentence via the MAGPIE corpus (CC BY 4.0, retrieved 2026-07-30)

Sources & notes

Adapted from English Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 4.0, retrieved 2026-07-30 via kaikki.org).

Common questions

What does “swear like a trooper” mean?

To swear a lot; to utter many swear words.

Is “swear like a trooper” formal or informal?

No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.