boast

noun

Etymology: From Middle English bosten, from bost (“boast, glory, noise, arrogance, presumption, pride, vanity”), probably of North Germanic origin, ultimately from Proto-Germanic *bausuz (“inflated, swollen, puffed up, proud, arrogant, bad”). Cognate with Scots bost, boist (“to threaten, brag, boast”), Anglo-Norman bost (“ostentation”) (from Germanic). Related to Norwegian baus (“proud, bold, daring”), dialectal German baustern (“to swell”), German böse (“evil, bad, angry”), Dutch boos (“evil, wicked, angry”), West Frisian boas (“bad, wicked, angry, shrewd, clever”). Compare also dialectal Norwegian bausta, busta (“to rush onward, make a noise”). Possible doublet of boost. Compare typologically puffy, Russian напы́щенный (napýščennyj), наду́тый (nadútyj).

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

verb

1. To 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.