Quote Originally Posted by Rex Blunder View Post
Surely some over-pedantic person will appear now and lecture everyone about the etymology being from the swashing sounds of sword-and-buckler fighting. oops, I'm the monster at the end of this book!
Yo.

A swashbuckler swashes (meaning strikes) his buckler, as a taunt. As Rex says, it goes back to a style involving swords and bucklers. It refers to a style involving a certain amount of bravado and posturing, wherein fighters would show their opponents that they weren't worried about them.

Today, of course, they'd just post nasty things about each other on internet message boards.