• 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: Published According to the True Originall Copies (First Folio), London: Printed by Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, OCLC 606515358 ↗, [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], H[enry] Lawes, editor, A Maske Presented at Ludlow Castle, 1634: […] [Comus], London: Printed [by Augustine Matthews] for Hvmphrey Robinson, […], published 1637, OCLC 228715864 ↗; 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 1113942837 ↗:

     Beauty is Nature's brag.

3. (by ellipsis) The card game three card brag.

• French: brag

brag (brags, present participle bragging; past bragged, 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.

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

   • c. 1591–1595, William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Romeo and Ivliet”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies: Published According to the True Originall Copies (First Folio), London: Printed by Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, OCLC 606515358 ↗, [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

2. (transitive) To boast of.

• boast

• bragging rights

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

brag (comparative bragger, superlative braggest)

1. Excellent; first-rate.
2. (archaic) Brisk; full of spirits; boasting; pretentious; conceited.
   • 1633, Ben Jonson, A Tale of a Tub

   a woundy, brag young fellow

brag

1. (obsolete) proudly; boastfully