show off

present singular third person shows off · participle present showing off · past showed off · participle past shown off

1. idiomatictransitiveTo exhibit the best attributes of something.

   Grocery stores show off their produce by placing the most attractive specimens in front.

   Synonyms: parade

2. idiomaticintransitivetransitiveTo attract attention to for the purpose of bragging or personal exhibitionism; to demonstrate a skill, talent or property for the purpose of bragging or personal exhibitionism.

   She loves to show off her driving prowess.

   4 more examples

   She loves to show off when she gets behind the wheel of a car.

   “Listen, my Oscar,” she said, resuming at once her tender voice, “you have a propensity to talk, and to tell all you know, and all that you don’t know; and you do it to show off, with the foolish vanity of a mere lad.[…]”

   a. 1897, Katharine Prescott Wormeley, transl., A Start in Life, translation of Un début dans la vie by Honoré de Balzac

   If you've just acquired a Google Glass headset for £1,000, don't show it off at the movies. UK cinemas are to ban the headsets over fears that the gadgets can be used to make pirate copies of Hollywood blockbusters.

   2014 June 29, Adam Sherwin, “UK cinemas ban Google glasses over piracy risk”, in The Independent

   She told the press that the group had been for an evening out and that the driver has been showing off by driving fast.

   2022 September 7, “Network News: High-speed car crash blocks Tube Line”, in RAIL, number 965, page 23

   Synonyms: flaunt, strut, aura farm, boulevardier, cut a wide swath, cut it fat, cut round, exhibitionize

plural show offs

1. nonstandardNonstandard spelling of show-off.