Emily Dickinson Lexicon

HEC'TOR-ING, ppr.

Bullying; blustering; vexing. [“The epithet of a hectoring fellow is a more familiar instance of a participle similarly formed, though strangely distorted in its use to express a meaning almost the opposite of its original. The Hector of Homer unites, we know, 'The mildest manners with the bravest mind.' The sole bulwark of Troy, he reveres the opinion of her citizens; armed and hastening to the battle, he stops to caress his infant, and to soothe the afflictions of its mother; to his brother's faults he is indulgent; and Helen herself witnesses over his grave that she had never heard from him one accent of unkindness, or ceased to be protected from the reproach of others by his mild speech and kindly dispositions: Σῆ τ' αγανοφροσύνη, καὶ σοῖς αγανοῖς ἐπἑεσσι.” Nugæ Metricæ, an unpublished work by Lord Grenville, 1824, p. 86. – E. H. B.]