a1628 F. Greville Life of Sidney (1651) xii. 149 With constant, and obedient posturing of his body to their Art.

1654 R. Lechemere Let. 21 Mar. in Coll. State Papers J. Thurloe (1742) III. 290 Since the attempts at Salisbury wee of this county did hope for some commands from his highnes, for the posturing of this county for preservation of the honest interest here.

?1790 Advertisement By Permission of the Right Worshipful the Vice-Chancellor... This present Evening will be performed, In a Large Room at the Wrestlers Inn, Petty Cury, Cambridge, Act I. Hornpipe Dancing. Act II. Posturing and Tumbling.

1836 C. Dickens Pickwick Papers (1837) xv. 153 Never was such ingenious posturing, as his fancy-dressed friends exhibited.

1861 H. Mayhew London Labour (new ed.) III. 94/1 Posturing..(some people call it contortionists)..is reckoned the healthiest life there is, because we never get the rheumatics.

1889 G. B. Shaw in Star 29 May 2/6 Signor Novara..played the part with unexpected success..acting without any senseless posturing and point-making.

1941 Time 12 May 55/1 Her pretty posturing, pouts, stunned, exotic stares are meaningless when she tries to do them once over lightly.

1955 P. Larkin Let. 28 May in Sel. Lett. (1992) 242 I feel we have got the method right—plain language, absence of posturings, sense of proportion, humour.

1991 New Musical Express 31 Aug. 29/2 It's full of jumbled rhetoric and posturing.

1927 A. C. Bent Life Hist. N. Amer. Shore Birds: Order Limicolae (Part 1) 245 The posturing is often in the nature of mock fighting—I have never seen any real blows exchanged.

1953 N. Tinbergen Herring Gull's World ii. 7 The movements playing a part in posturing are based on flattening or raising of the plumage as a whole, on eye movements and on the attitude of head, neck and wings.

1992 Nat. Hist. Jan. 35/2 Evidently the preflight posturing did not effectively secure unmolested passage through the ranks.

1851 E. S. Wortley Trav. in U.S. II. iv. 74 Begging children..pursue you sometimes, mounted upon each other's shoulders, like the posturing Arabs.

1872 O. W. Holmes Poet at Breakfast-table i What a statue gallery of posturing friends we all have!

1918 S. Sassoon Counter-Attack Posturing giants dissolved in drifts of smoke.

1958 K. Amis I like it Here xvi. 200 The kind of prancing, posturing phoney who'd say he was better than Fielding.

1990 L. Battle Past is Another Country (1991) ii. 52 He assumed the film crowd at the party would be the same self-serving, posturing windbags he'd met some ten years ago.