boast

plural boasts

1. A brag; ostentatious positive appraisal of oneself.
2. Something that one brags about.

   It was his regular boast that he could eat two full English breakfasts in one sitting.

3. ball gamesA shot where the ball is driven off a side wall and then strikes the front wall.

present singular third person boasts · participle present boasting · participle past boasted · past boasted

1. intransitiveTo brag; to talk loudly in praise of oneself.

   On no account will he or any other kind be able to boast that he's escaped the pursuit of those who can follow so detailed and comprehensive a method of enquiry.

   2005, Plato, translated by Lesley Brown, Sophist, page 235c

2. transitive[with about or of] To speak of with pride, vanity, or exultation, with a view to self-commendation; to extol.

   Lest bad men should boast / Their specious deeds.

   1667, John Milton, “Book II”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker […]; [a]nd by Robert Boulter […]; [a]nd Matthias Walker, […], →OCLC; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: […], London: Basil Montagu Pickering […], 1873, →OCLC

   1 more example

   The dirty secret of the internet is that all this distraction and interruption is immensely profitable. Web companies like to boast about "creating compelling content", or offering services that let you "stay up to date with what your friends are doing",[…]and so on. But the real way to build a successful online business is to be better than your rivals at undermining people's control of their own attention.

   2013 June 21, Oliver Burkeman, “The tao of tech”, in The Guardian Weekly, volume 189, number 2, page 27

3. obsoleteTo speak in exulting language of another; to glory; to exult.

   In God we boast all the day long.

   1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Psalms 44:8

4. ball gamesTo play a boast shot.
5. transitiveTo possess (a special and desirable quality).

   His family boasted a famous name.

   4 more examples

   The hotel boasts one of the best views of the sea.

   The Meinung, Kaoshu, Shalin, and Liukuei Hakka together comprised the army's "Right Unit," and it alone boasted some 3,200 fighting men.

   1983, Burton Pasternak, “Lungtu Before the Japanese”, in Guests in the Dragon : Social Demography of a Chinese district, 1895-1946, Columbia University Press, →ISBN, →LCCN, →OCLC, page 20

   Jinhua and others are spending big to get there. In Jinjiang, a city in Fujian Province once known as a shoe-manufacturing center, Jinhua’s new factory is almost finished. Rising five stories and stretching several football fields long, the structure boasts 100,000 square feet of new office space.

   2018 June 22, Paul Mozur, “Inside a Heist of American Chip Designs, as China Bids for Tech Power”, in The New York Times, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 22 Jun 2018, Technology

   After dropping off travellers at Foregate Street, my train terminates at Shrub Hill - a station which boasts one of the best selection [sic] of semaphore signals left in the country.

   2020 December 2, Paul Bigland, “My weirdest and wackiest Rover yet”, in Rail, page 67

present singular third person boasts · participle present boasting · participle past boasted · past boasted

1. businessTo dress, as a stone, with a broad chisel.
2. To shape roughly as a preparation for the finer work to follow; to cut to the general form required.