From Middle English braggen of unknown origin.

• IPA: /bɹæɡ/

brag (plural brags)

1. A boast or boasting; bragging; ostentatious pretence or self-glorification.
   • 1611 April (first recorded performance), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Cymbeline”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC ↗, [Act III, scene i]:

     Caesar […] made not here his brag / Of "came", and "saw", and "overcame".

2. The thing which is boasted of.
   • 1634 October 9 (first performance), [John Milton], edited by H[enry] Lawes, A Maske Presented at Ludlow Castle, 1634: […] [Comus], London: […] [Augustine Matthews] for Hvmphrey Robinson, […], published 1637, →OCLC ↗; reprinted as Comus: […] (Dodd, Mead & Company’s Facsimile Reprints of Rare Books; Literature Series; no. I), New York, N.Y.: Dodd, Mead & Company, 1903, →OCLC ↗:

     Beauty is Nature's brag.

3. (by ellipsis) The card game three card brag.
   • January 23 1752, Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield, in Letters to His Son, published in 1774

     our mixed companies here, which, if they happen to rise above bragg and whist, infallibly stop short of every thing either pleasing or instructive

• French: brag

brag (brags, present participle bragging; simple past and past participle bragged)

1. (intransitive) To boast; to talk with excessive pride about what one has, is able to do, or has done; often as an attempt to popularize oneself.
2. (transitive) To boast of something.

   to brag of one’s exploits, courage, or money

   • c. 1591–1595 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Romeo and Ivliet”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC ↗, [Act II, scene vi]:

     Conceit, more rich in matter than in words, / Brags of his substance, not of ornament. / Nor shall Death brag thou wander’st in his shade

• boast

• bragging rights

• French: fanfaronner, se vanter
• German: angeben, prahlen
• Italian: vantarsi
• Portuguese: gabar-se, vangloriar-se
• Russian: хва́статься
• Spanish: fanfarronear, presumir, jactarse, echarse flores

brag (comparative bragger, superlative braggest)

1. Excellent; first-rate.
2. (archaic) Brisk; full of spirits; boasting; pretentious; conceited.
   • 1633 (first performance), Ben Jonson, “A Tale of a Tub. A Comedy […]”, in The Works of Beniamin Jonson, […] (Third Folio), London: […] Thomas Hodgkin, for H[enry] Herringman, E. Brewster, T. Bassett, R[ichard] Chiswell, M. Wotton, G. Conyers, published 1692, →OCLC ↗, (please specify the act number in uppercase Roman numerals, and the scene number in lowercase Roman numerals):

     a woundy, brag young fellow

brag

1. (obsolete) proudly; boastfully
   • 1579, Immeritô [pseudonym; Edmund Spenser], “Februarie. Ægloga Secunda.”, in The Shepheardes Calender: […], London: […] Hugh Singleton, […], →OCLC ↗:

     Seest how brag yond bullock beare […] his pricked eares?