【Aggressive】 , 【Militant】 , 【Assertive】 , 【Self-assertive】 , 【Pushing】 and 【Pushy】 are here compared as applied to persons, their dispositions, or their behavior, and as meaning conspicuously or obtrusively active or energetic.
【Aggressive】 implies a disposition to assume or maintain leadership or domination, sometimes by bullying, sometimes by indifference to others' rights, but more often by self-confident and forceful prosecution of one's ends.
- as intolerant and 【aggressive】 as any of the traditional satirists
—Day Lewis' - protect themselves against a too 【aggressive】 prosecution of the women's business
—Shaw
【Militant】 , like 【aggressive】 , implies a fighting disposition but seldom conveys a suggestion of self-seeking. It usually implies extreme devotion to some cause, movement, or institution and energetic and often self-sacrificing prosecution of its ends.
- 【militant】 feminists
- 【militant】 trade union
- the cause of reform slowly went on gaining adherents—most of them . . . of the acquiescent rather than the 【militant】 type
—Grandgent
【Assertive】 stresses self-confidence and boldness in action or, especially, in the expression of one's opinions. It often implies a determined attempt to make oneself or one's influence felt.
- somewhat too diffident, not 【assertive】 enough
—Bennett - to say, with some challenging 【assertive】 people, that trees are more beautiful than flowers
—Lucas
Selfassertive usually adds to 【assertive】 the implication of bumptiousness or undue forwardness.
- 【self-assertive】 behavior incompatible with cooperativeness
【Pushing】 , when used without any intent to depreciate, comes very close to 【aggressive】 in the current sense of the latter; however, the word is more commonly derogatory and implies, variously, officiousness, social climbing, or offensive intrusiveness.
- an energetic, 【pushing】 youth, already intent on getting on in the world
— Anderson
【Pushy】 is very close in meaning to 【pushing】 but is more consistently derogatory in connotation.
- his motive power derives from . . . the pushiest ambition since Alexander the Great
—R. L. Taylor - careful not to sound 【pushy】 or overeager
—McClung
