boast

boast¹ brag

Etymology

The word for bragging is inherited from Middle English bost, also boost, with the verb bosten,^[2][3][4][5] probably borrowed from Anglo-Norman bost (“boasting, ostentation”),^{[2][5][6][7][8][9]} which is recorded from 1235–55.^[10] Beyond Anglo-Norman its origin is unclear.^[7][11][12] The MED and Etymonline take the Anglo-Norman word from a Germanic, probably Scandinavian, source,^[2][6][5] comparing Norwegian baus (“proud, bold, daring”) and Middle High German būs (“swelling”),^[6][2][5] and Etymonline traces it to a Proto-Germanic base meaning "to blow up, puff up, swell", with the notion of being puffed up with pride.^[6] Wiktionary reconstructs this as Proto-Germanic *bausuz,^[13] also the source of Old High German bōsi (“worthless, slanderous”), German böse (“evil, bad, angry”) and Dutch boos (“evil, angry”),^[6][3][5] and Etymonline and Klein carry it back to a root Proto-Indo-European *bheu- that formed words for swelling.^[6][3] Skeat preferred Norwegian bausta (“to act with violence”) as the source.^[8] The OED, however, calls the origin unknown: the long vowel, kept as “oa” in the north as well as in standard English, rules out a native Old English word and points to a later foreign word like coast, roast and toast, which would suggest an Old French verb *boster, of which no trace has been found.^[14] Weekley also thought the form suggests French,^[9] and the Gersum project finds no convincing etymology.^[15] Welsh bostio and Scottish Gaelic bòsd are borrowings from English, not its source.^[14][8][16]

Earliest recorded meaning

Arrogance, bragging, ostentation: 1265, in Barnhart;^[17][5] Etymonline gives "arrogance, presumption, pride, vanity" from the mid-13th century.^[6] The OED's first record, from Robert of Gloucester's Chronicle (1297), has the sense "ostentation, pomp, vainglory", now obsolete.^[14][18]

Semantic evolution

In early use both the noun and the verb often meant loud or threatening speech rather than bragging.^[11][7] The noun meant an outcry or clamour from about 1300 to 1813, and a menacing, "big" speech in northern English from 1487 to 1637;^[14][18] the verb meant to threaten from about 1300 (Kyng Alisaunder) to 1610, and in Scots to bully or terrify until the 18th century.^[14][12] Wright still found the threatening sense in older Scots, as boist.^[19] The sense of boastful talk is recorded from about 1300,^[14][6] and the verb "to brag" from 1377, in Langland's Piers Plowman;^[14] Barnhart dates the verb to about 1350 and takes it from the noun.^[17][5] Chaucer used the noun twelve times, for bragging, arrogance and threats.^[20] The phrase make one's boast goes back to Chaucer's Legend of Good Women (about 1385).^[14] From 1594, in Shakespeare's Lucrece, a boast was also the thing one is proud of,^[14][6] the first sense in Johnson's Dictionary (1755).^[21] In 1697 Dryden used the verb for simply possessing something to be proud of, as when a town boasts a cathedral.^[14][6] In American underworld slang of the early 20th century, make the boast meant to obtain a pardon.^[22]

Timeline

• 1265 – noun, arrogance, bragging, ostentation.^[5]
• 1297 – ostentation, pomp, vainglory (obsolete by 1440).^[14][18]
• c. 1300 – loud outcry, clamour (obsolete by 1813); boastful speech; verb, to threaten (obsolete by 1610).^[14]
• 1377 – verb, to brag, in Langland's Piers Plowman.^[14]
• c. 1385 – make one's boast, in Chaucer.^[14]
• 1487 – threatening speech, in northern English (to 1637).^[14]
• 1543 – transitive, to speak of with pride.^[14]
• 1594 – a cause of pride, in Shakespeare's Lucrece.^[14]
• 1697 – to possess as something to be proud of, in Dryden.^[14]

Meanings

Verb

1. To talk with too much pride about oneself, one's abilities or possessions; to brag: He never stops boasting about his new car.^[23][4][14]
2. To speak of something proudly or in an exaggerated way: She boasted that she had never missed a deadline.^[4][14][12]
3. To have something worth being proud of: The village boasts two medieval churches.^[23][4][14]
4. (archaic) To glory or exult.^[4][14]
5. (obsolete except in dialect) To threaten.^[14][12][19]

Noun

1. A bragging statement.^[23][4][14]
2. Something that one is proud of: The orchard was the farm's chief boast.^{[23][4][14][21]}
3. (obsolete except in dialect, c. 1300–1813) Loud speech, outcry, clamour.^[14][12]

Word family

• boaster
• boastful
• boastfully
• boastfulness
• boastingly
• boastless
• unboasted
• outboast

boast² dress stone

Etymology

The stonemasons' verb is of unknown origin.^{[4][12][16][23]} The OED notes that French bosse (“swelling, relief”), as in ronde bosse (“full relief”), has been suggested, but finds it a poor fit.^[14]

Earliest recorded meaning

To pare stone irregularly with a broad chisel and a mallet: 1823, in Nicholson's New Practical Builder.^[14][4][18]

Semantic evolution

From masonry the verb passed to sculpture, for shaping a block roughly before the details are cut,^[14][12] and later, in 1867, to wood-carving, for roughing out a design.^[14][18] In West Yorkshire dialect it meant to dress stone with a mason's broad chisel, and the chisel itself, about two inches wide, was a boaster.^[19][12]

Timeline

• 1823 – masonry, to pare stone roughly with a broad chisel.^[14][4]
• 1867 – wood-carving, to model the details of a design roughly.^[14]

Meanings

Verb

1. To shape stone roughly with a broad chisel, before the finer work is done.^[4][12][14]
2. To finish the face of a building stone with rows of parallel grooves.^[4]
3. In sculpture and wood-carving, to rough out a block or a design.^[14][12]

boast³ stroke in squash

Etymology

The stroke in real tennis and squash is perhaps borrowed from French bosse (“protuberance; the place where the ball hits the wall”),^{[14][4][12][23][16]} which the Oxford dictionaries describe as a rounded projection in the wall of a real-tennis court,^[12][24] from boce.^[4] The OED compares the masons' verb.^[14]

Earliest recorded meaning

To return the ball off a side wall: 1865, in Merriam-Webster;^[4] the OED's first record is from Marshall's Annals of Tennis (1878).^[14]

Semantic evolution

The word belongs to real tennis and rackets, and passed to squash, where the OED records it from 1902.^[14][18][12] The noun, for the stroke itself, is recorded from about 1878.^[4][12]

Timeline

• 1865 – verb, to hit the ball against a side wall.^[4]
• 1878 – in Marshall's Annals of Tennis; noun, the stroke.^[14][4]
• 1902 – in squash.^[18]

Meanings

Noun

1. In real tennis and squash, a stroke that sends the ball against a side wall before it reaches the end wall.^[4][12][23]

Verb

1. To hit the ball in this way, or to play such a stroke.^[4][14][12]