boast
/boʊst/
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: 3.51 in modern English
7
Scrabble Score
5
Letters
1
Syllables
5
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
A brag; ostentatious positive appraisal of oneself.
noun
A shot where the ball is driven off a side wall and then strikes the front wall.
verb
[with about or of] To speak of with pride, vanity, or exultation, with a view to self-commendation; to extol.
Transitive verb
Example Sentences
- "It was his regular boast that he could eat two full English breakfasts in one sitting."
- "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."
- "Lest bad men should boast / Their specious deeds."
- "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."
- "In God we boast all the day long."
- "The hotel boasts one of the best views of the sea."
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).
Origin
Word Breakdown
- Root: bosten, *bausuz
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /boʊst/
- British English: /bəʊst/