boast

Meanings

1. 1
   verb

   to show off

   Stop boasting, it doesn't impress me.

2. 2
   verb

   to wear or display in an ostentatious or proud manner

   The restaurant boasted its five-star review.

3. 3
   noun

   Something that one brags about.

   It was his regular boast that he could eat two full English breakfasts in one sitting.

4. 4
   verb

   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.

5. 5
   verb

   (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.

6. 6
   verb

   To speak in exulting language of another; to glory; to exult.

   In God we boast all the day long.

7. 7
   verb

   To possess (a special and desirable quality).

   The hotel boasts one of the best views of the sea.

8. 8
   noun

   speaking of yourself in superlatives

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 baus…