boast

/boʊst/

/bəʊst/

Other forms: boasted; boasts; boasting

When you boast you are bragging about yourself and your accomplishments (or maybe those of your family), often to the boredom and annoyance of your audience.

Used as either a noun or a verb, boast usually suggests exaggeration, vanity, or pride. Along those lines, English poet Sir Thomas Overbury, who died in 1613, once said, "The man who has nothing to boast of but his illustrious ancestry is like the potato — the best part underground." However, the word can also be used in a positive way: a town can boast a new library, or a school can boast a high graduation rate.

Definitions of boast

1. verb

   talk about oneself with excessive pride or self-regard
   synonyms: blow, bluster, brag, gas, gasconade, shoot a line, swash, tout, vaunt

   types:

   puff

   speak in a blustering or scornful manner

   crow, gloat, triumph

   dwell on with satisfaction

   congratulate, preen

   pride or congratulate (oneself) for an achievement

   type of:

   amplify, exaggerate, hyperbolise, hyperbolize, magnify, overdraw, overstate

   to enlarge beyond bounds or the truth
2. verb

   possess or display some desirable feature
   synonyms: feature, sport

   type of:

   feature, have

   have as a feature
3. noun

   speaking of yourself in superlatives
   synonyms: boasting, jactitation, self-praise

   types:

   brag, bragging, crow, crowing, gasconade, line-shooting, vaporing

   an instance of boastful talk

   bluster, braggadocio, rhodomontade, rodomontade

   vain and empty boasting

   vaunt

   extravagant self-praise

   self-assertion

   the act of putting forth your own opinions in a boastful or inconsiderate manner that implies you feel superior to others

   type of:

   speech act

   the use of language to perform some act