boast
UK /bəʊst/ · US /boʊst/ noun, verb
Forms boasts boasting boasted
- noun A brag; ostentatious positive appraisal of oneself.
- noun Something that one brags about. “It was his regular boast that he could eat two full English breakfasts in one sitting.”
- noun (squash) A shot where the ball is driven off a side wall and then strikes the front wall.
- verb (intransitive) To brag; to talk loudly in praise of oneself.
- verb (transitive) [with about or of] To speak of with pride, vanity, or exultation, with a view to self-commendation; to extol.
- verb (obsolete) To speak in exulting language of another; to glory; to exult.
- verb (squash) To play a boast shot.
- verb (transitive) To possess (a special and desirable quality). “The hotel boasts one of the best views of the sea.”
- verb (masonry) To dress, as a stone, with a broad chisel.
- verb (sculpting) To shape roughly as a preparation for the finer work to follow; to cut to the general form required.
Synonyms
brag crow vaunt boasting self-praise jactitation tout swash shoot a line gas blow bluster gasconade sport feature
Antonyms
Etymology
From Middle English bosten, from bost (“boast, glory, noise, arrogance, presumption, pride, vanity”), probably of North Germanic origin, ultimately from Proto-Germanic *bausuz (“inflated, swollen, puffed up, proud, arrogant, bad”).
Cognate with Scots bost, boist (“to threaten, brag, boast”), Anglo-Norman bost (“ostentation”) (from Germanic). Related to Norwegian baus (“proud, bold, daring”), dialectal German baustern (“to swell”), German böse (“evil, bad, angry”), Dutch boos (“evil, wicked, angry”), West Frisian boas (“bad, wicked, angry, shrewd, clever”). Compare also dialectal Norwegian bausta, busta (“to rush onward, make a noise”). Possible doublet of boost.
Compare typologically puffy, Russian напы́щенный (napýščennyj), наду́тый (nadútyj).
Webster’s 1913
- verb To vaunt one's self; to brag; to say or tell things which are intended to give others a high opinion of one's self or of things belonging to one's self; as, to boast of one's exploits courage, descent, wealth.
- verb To speak in exulting language of another; to glory; to exult.
- verb To display in ostentatious language; to speak of with pride, vanity, or exultation, with a view to self-commendation; to extol.
- verb To display vaingloriously.
Etymology [OE. bosten, boosten, v., bost, boost, n., noise, boasting; cf. G. bausen, bauschen, to swell, pusten, Dan. puste, Sw. pusta, to blow, Sw. pösa to swell; or W. bostio to boast, bost boast, Gael. bosd. But these last may be from English.]
Etymology [Of uncertain etymology.]
Sources: Wiktionary · WordNet 3.0 · Webster’s 1913 — from the Wiktionary entry “boast”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details