Definition of "jackbooted"

For, as the mighty cavalcades approach / Periwigg’d, Jackbooted, to announce the coach; / A thousand lamps spontaneously appear, / Through the long vista—visitors to cheer.— [...]

1819, [Hans Busk], “Canto III. Second Course.”, in The Banquet: In Three Cantos, London: Baldwin, Cradock, and Joy, […], page 96

[T]he four stallions that drew us kicked, plunged, snorted, and screamed, in full concert with the eternal smack of the whips, as well as shrieks, whoops, and oaths of the jackbooted postillions, lugging about out little barouche in a manner that threatened its demolition at every instant.

1826, Walter Scott, “Letter XI. Paul to ——, Esq. of ——.”, in Paul’s Letters to His Kinfolk. In Two Volumes (The Works of Walter Scott, Esq.; LXXXX; Romances; LXXV), volume II, Zwickau, Saxony: […] Brothers Schumann, page 35

The synod of the Russian Church is presided over by a jackbooted general, armed with an unlimited veto and full power of prorogation. Of course such a Church is but a tool to assist political objects, to give a colour of right to political intrigue, to stir up religious enthusiasm in favour of acts of piracy and unlawful war.

1864, Lord Robert Montagu, “The Eastern and Western Churches”, in The Four Experiments in Church and State and the Conflicts of Churches, London: Longman, Green, Longman, Roberts, & Green, page 101

He loved to see him in review uniform—so much more delightful than plain khaki—pale blue, white, and gold, in full panoply of accoutrement, jackbooted and spurred, and with the great turban that made his English face look more English still.

1914, Percival Christopher Wren, “The Snake Appears”, in Snake and Sword: A Novel, London, New York, N.Y.: Longmans, Green and Co. […], part II (The Searing of a Soul), page 43

She seemed to feel silent, jack-booted watchers standing outside frightened houses, figures kneeling to scrub the pavements, children coldly excluded from their familiar playgrounds, the informer's whisper in the café, fear and suspicion like rheumatism fastening upon the easy intercourse of friends—all the vicious little tricks of modern tyranny.

1939, Nicholas Blake [pseudonym; Cecil Day-Lewis], “The Episode of the Amorous Cricketer”, in The Smiler with the Knife, London: Vintage Books, published 2012

In the departure zone he rasped at Lufthansa officials in what seemed very theatrical German. So might he have acted some cardboard jackbooted Prussian in an end-of-term comedy at Hyderabad House near Bridport.

1980, Anthony Burgess, chapter 53, in Earthly Powers, London: Hutchinson

The house floated with tears and terror and uncontainable fury and music that made children dream of the jackbooted intruders who lit their way with torches made of Jewish hair.

1995, Pat Conroy, Beach Music, trade paperback edition, New York, N.Y.: Dial Press, published 2009, page 475

Hurrying, now, a family in frantic flight: after them the clattering of jackbooted feet. Mounds of books going up in flames, sinewy black letters turned to ashes and smoke. When they burn books, they will also burn people.

2006, Shira Nayman, “Dark Urgings of the Blood”, in Awake in the Dark: Stories, New York, N.Y.: Scribner, page 233

Standing in the middle of the courtyard, some twenty paces from him were three silent ominous figures in green paramilitary style uniforms, jack booted and wearing peaked caps on which was an undefined insignia.

2009, Robert Richardson, chapter 3, in The Silver Cane, [Morrisville, N.C.]: Lulu, page 23

Despite the images of jackbooted Nazis that so many students in the English-speaking world still associate with the country, Germany has been utterly transformed.

2013, David P. Conradt, Eric Langenbacher, “Introduction to the Tenth Edition”, in The German Polity, 10th edition, Lanham, Md., Boulder, N.Y.: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, page 1

[T]his discourse is highly reminiscent of anticommunist rhetoric [...] emphasizing the totalitarian, jackbooted character of the enemy.

1997, Didi Herman, “Representing Homosexuality and Its Agenda”, in The Antigay Agenda: Orthodox Vision and the Christian Right, Chicago, Ill., London: University of Chicago Press, page 90

By 1797, they had overturned elections, vitiated the modest religious liberty they had sanctioned, and finally installed the "jackbooted-justice" of military courts throughout the nation.

1999, Judith A. Miller, “Re-creating the Market: Thermidor and the Directory”, in Mastering the Market: The State and the Grain Trade in Northern France, 1700–1860, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire: Cambridge University Press, page 163

It is worth noting again that the word [Friedrich] Nietzsche uses is Macht, not Reich, and thus might be better understood as personal strength rather than political power. It does not mean "power" in the nasty, jackbooted sense that still sends flutters up the European spine. The term means something like effective self-realization and expression.

2000, Robert C. Solomon, Kathleen M[arie] Higgins, “Nietzsche’s Affirmative Philosophy”, in What Nietzsche Really Said, New York, N.Y.: Schocken Books, page 220

[Béla] Bartók risks accusations of simplistic gesturing [...] which make the central episode (bars 80–114) seem miscalculated as a parody of mindless, tasteless folk improvisation rather than a passionately 'natural' countering of jackbooted violence.

2003, Arnold Whittall, “Rites of Renewal and Remembrance”, in Exploring Twentieth-century Music: Tradition and Innovation, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire: Cambridge University Press, page 53

The jackbooted origins of his party, which he was working so carefully to hide, marching back into the limelight.

2015, Eva Dolan, Tell No Tales, London: Harvill Secker, page 78

The severe disciplinary action taken by his daughter—who since taking over the FN in 2011 has led a drive to “detoxify” the party and move it away from the racist, jackbooted, antisemitic imagery of the past—was supposed to silence her father.

2015 May 5, Angelique Chrisafis, “Front National family feud goes nuclear as Jean-Marie Le Pen disowns Marine”, in The Guardian‎