Etymologically
Log in

boast

This is the current revision of this entry, as edited by bogdan on 31 October 2026 at 09:42. This address is a permanent link to this version.
Changes in this edit History

Pronunciation

  • UK: /bəʊst/[1]
  • US: /boʊst/[1]

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]

Usage notes

In the north of Ireland a dialect adjective boast means hollow or decayed inside (a boast tree); Wright took it as probably a form of borst, burst.[19]

References

  1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
  3. ^ a b c Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  5. ^ a b c d e f g h Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
  6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  7. ^ a b c Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
  8. ^ a b c Skeat, Walter W. (1911), A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, new ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
  9. ^ a b Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
  10. ^ Anglo-Norman Dictionary (AND2), Aberystwyth University, anglo-norman.net (2nd ed., 2005–)
  11. ^ a b Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  12. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
  13. ^ Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary (1999), 2nd ed., New York: Random House
  14. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
  15. ^ Dance, Richard; Pons-Sanz, Sara; Schorn, Brittany, eds., The Gersum Project: The Scandinavian Influence on English Vocabulary, gersum.org
  16. ^ a b c The Chambers Dictionary (2008), 11th ed., Edinburgh: Chambers Harrap
  17. ^ a b Barnhart, Robert K., ed. (1995), The Barnhart Concise Dictionary of Etymology, New York: HarperCollins
  18. ^ a b c d e f g Kay, Christian; Roberts, Jane; Samuels, Michael; Wotherspoon, Irené, eds. (2009), Historical Thesaurus of the Oxford English Dictionary, Oxford: Oxford University Press; online edition (2024)
  19. ^ a b c d Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)
  20. ^ Benson, Larry D., Glossarial Concordance to Middle English (Chaucer, Gower), Johns Hopkins University, github.com/jhu-digital-manuscripts/gcme
  21. ^ a b Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
  22. ^ Green, Jonathon (2010), Green's Dictionary of Slang, London: Chambers; digital ed. 2016–, https://greensdictofslang.com
  23. ^ a b c d e f g Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
  24. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press