• (RP) IPA: /bəʊst/
• (GA) IPA: /boʊst/

boast (plural boasts)

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. (squash) A shot where the ball is driven off a side wall and then strikes the front wall.

• French: vantardise, fanfaronnade
• German: Angeben, Prahlen
• Italian: vanteria, guasconeria
• Portuguese: ostentação
• Russian: хвастовство́
• Spanish: presunción, alarde, fanfarronada, vanagloria, ostentación, jactancia

boast (boasts, present participle boasting; past and past participle boasted)

1. (intransitive) To brag; to talk loudly in praise of oneself.
   • 2005, Lesley Brown (translator), Plato, Sophist, 235c.

     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. (transitive) To speak of with pride, vanity, or exultation, with a view to self-commendation; to extol.
   • 1667, John Milton, “Book 2”, in Paradise Lost. A Poem Written in Ten Books, London: Printed [by Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker […] [a]nd by Robert Boulter […] [a]nd Matthias Walker, […], OCLC 228722708 ↗; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: The Text Exactly Reproduced from the First Edition of 1667: […], London: Basil Montagu Pickering […], 1873, OCLC 230729554 ↗:

     Lest bad men should boast / Their specious deeds.

3. (obsolete) To speak in exulting language of another; to glory; to exult.
   • 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), imprinted at London: By Robert Barker, […], OCLC 964384981 ↗, Psalms 44:8 ↗:

     In God we boast all the day long.

4. (squash) To play a boast shot.
5. (ergative) To possess something special.

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

   His family boasted a famous name.

• brag

• French: se vanter
• German: angeben, prahlen
• Italian: vantarsi
• Portuguese: ostentar, exibir-se, gabar
• Russian: хва́статься
• Spanish: presumir, alardear, fanfarronear, vanagloriarse de, ostentar, jactarse de, ufanarse, fardar

boast (boasts, present participle boasting; past and past participle boasted)

1. (masonry) To dress, as a stone, with a broad chisel.
2. (sculpting) To shape roughly as a preparation for the finer work to follow; to cut to the general form required.