boast
verbEtymology
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).
To brag; to talk loudly in praise of oneself.
- On no account will he or any other kind be able to boast that he's escaped the pursuit of those who can follow so detailed and comprehensive a method of enquiry.2005, Plato, translated by Lesley Brown, Sophist, page 235c:
(used with "about" or "of") To speak of with pride, vanity, or exultation, with a view to self-commendation; to extol.
- Lest bad men should boast / Their specious deeds.1667, John Milton, “Book II”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker […]; [a]nd by Robert Boulter […]; [a]nd Matthias Walker, […], →OCLC; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: […], London: Basil Montagu Pickering […], 1873, →OCLC:
- The dirty secret of the internet is that all this distraction and interruption is immensely profitable. Web companies like to boast about "creating compelling content", or offering services that let you "stay up to date with what your friends are doing",[…]and so on. But the real way to build a successful online business is to be better than your rivals at undermining people's control of their own attention.2013 June 21, Oliver Burkeman, “The tao of tech”, in The Guardian Weekly, volume 189, number 2, page 27:
Obsolete To speak in exulting language of another; to glory; to exult.
- In God we boast all the day long.1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Psalms 44:8:
Ball games, Games, Hobbies, Lifestyle, Sports, Squash To play a boast shot.
To possess (a special and desirable quality).
- The hotel boasts one of the best views of the sea.
- His family boasted a famous name.
3 more examples
- The Meinung, Kaoshu, Shalin, and Liukuei Hakka together comprised the army's "Right Unit," and it alone boasted some 3,200 fighting men.1983, Burton Pasternak, “Lungtu Before the Japanese”, in Guests in the Dragon : Social Demography of a Chinese district, 1895-1946, Columbia University Press, →ISBN, →LCCN, →OCLC, page 20:
- Jinhua and others are spending big to get there. In Jinjiang, a city in Fujian Province once known as a shoe-manufacturing center, Jinhua’s new factory is almost finished. Rising five stories and stretching several football fields long, the structure boasts 100,000 square feet of new office space.2018 June 22, Paul Mozur, “Inside a Heist of American Chip Designs, as China Bids for Tech Power”, in The New York Times, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 22 Jun 2018, Technology:
- After dropping off travellers at Foregate Street, my train terminates at Shrub Hill - a station which boasts one of the best selection [sic] of semaphore signals left in the country.2020 December 2, Paul Bigland, “My weirdest and wackiest Rover yet”, in Rail, page 67:
- Antonyms
- depreciate
- Derived terms
- boaster, boastful, boastfully, boastingly, boastive, boastless, boastly, boastsome, boastworthy, outboast, overboast, unboasted, unboasting