boastful

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English bostful, also spelled boostful,^[2][3] formed from English boast + -ful,^[4][5][6] the base being the Middle English noun bost.^[2][3] The OED calls the origin of that noun and of its verb unknown, both being found before 1300,^[4] while Etymonline derives the noun from Anglo-Norman bost (“ostentation”), probably of Scandinavian origin.^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

Of words or actions, full of boasting: about 1325, in Coer de Lyon.^[4] The Middle English Dictionary also quotes "bostful wrdys" from Mannyng, which it dates to about 1303 in a manuscript of before 1400,^[2] and Etymonline dates the word to the early 14th century.^[5]

Semantic evolution

The adjective was soon applied to people as well as to their words: Wyclif's works have it about 1380, and a Wycliffite sermon says that "Þis riche man was boostful in speche".^[4][2] The early Wycliffite Bible of 1382 has it in a sense that both the OED and the Middle English Dictionary gloss, with a question mark, as menacing.^[4][2] Johnson (1755) defined it as "ostentatious; inclined to brag", quoting Pope.^[7]

Timeline

• c. 1325 – of words or actions, full of boasting.^[4]
• c. 1380 – of people, given to boasting.^[4]
• 1382 – perhaps menacing, in the Wycliffite Bible, now obsolete.^[4][2]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Of a person: inclined to boast or brag: a boastful young captain.^[3][4][8]
2. Of words or actions: full of boasting; showing too much pride in oneself: boastful talk about his salary.^[3][4][8]
3. (obsolete, 1382) Perhaps menacing.^[4][2]

Word family

• boastfully
• boastfulness
• overboastful
• unboastful

Related words

• boast

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g 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 d Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ a b c Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
6. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
7. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
8. ^ a b Soanes, Catherine; Stevenson, Angus, eds. (2004), Concise Oxford English Dictionary, 11th ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press