the.com/boast
Confidence with a receipt attached, usually a fake one.
means To speak with exaggerated pride about yourself or your achievements, usually to impress someone.
from Boast arrives in English in the medieval period with no fully certain backstory — etymologists link it to Anglo-Norman or Old French 'bost' (meaning noise, pomp, or boasting), though its deeper roots before that are murky. Some have floated a connection to the same ancient root that gives us 'bustle' or words for noise and swelling pride, but that's suggestive rather than proven. What's clear is that from its earliest uses, the word carried the same whiff it does now — loud self-praise with more volume than substance.
- origin
- middle english for loud talk or threat
- tell
- the louder it gets, the smaller the achievement
- cousin
- humblebrag, its sneakier, more insufferable relative
- irony
- people who have it rarely need to say it