boast
nounverbverbattested in dialogue
- United Kingdom//bəʊst//
- United States//boʊst//
A brag; ostentatious positive appraisal of oneself.
noun
- 1
A brag; ostentatious positive appraisal of oneself.
- 2
Something that one brags about.
It was his regular boast that he could eat two full English breakfasts in one sitting.
- 3
A shot where the ball is driven off a side wall and then strikes the front wall.
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).
verb
- 1
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.
- 2
(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.
- 3
obsoleteTo speak in exulting language of another; to glory; to exult.
In God we boast all the day long.
- 4
To play a boast shot.
- 5
To possess (a special and desirable quality).
The hotel boasts one of the best views of the sea.
His family boasted a famous name.
The Meinung, Kaoshu, Shalin, and Liukuei Hakka together comprised the army's "Right Unit," and it alone boasted some 3,200 fighting men.
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.
verb
- 1
To dress, as a stone, with a broad chisel.
- 2
To shape roughly as a preparation for the finer work to follow; to cut to the general form required.
Forms
- plural
- boasts
- past tense
- boasted
- past participle
- boasted
- present participle
- boasting
- third person singular
- boasts
boast · A brag; ostentatious positive appraisal of oneself.
boat · Vessel for travelling by water. A small, usually open craft…bob · To move gently and vertically, in either a single motion or…Bob · A diminutive of the male given name Robert.