Pugnacious

Not that the doctor was a bully, or even pugnacious, in the usual sense of the word; he had no disposition to provoke a fight, no propense love of quarrelling.

As he made the demand he spat out a mouthful of blood and teeth and shoved his pugnacious face close to Oofty-Oofty.

In the face of bad news Churchill normally became even more pugnacious, always wanting to respond to defeat by going on the attack.

[I]n the 575 days since [Oscar] Pistorius shot dead his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp, there has been an unseemly scramble to construct revisionist histories, to identify evidence beneath that placid exterior of a pugnacious, hair-trigger personality.

Of course the Johnston swings around to engage the entire flotilla, and, despite taking several more hits, Johnston successfully forces away the first two ships, which leads to the entire squadron taking a detour to avoid the single pugnacious ship.

In a speech this weekend, Ms. Le Pen suggested that her “pugnacious” young protégé, Jordan Bardella, who is one of the most popular politicians in France, was ready to become prime minister.