different between boast vs swagger

English

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /b??st/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /bo?st/
• Rhymes: -??st

Etymology 1

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”).

Noun

boast (plural boasts)

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

3. (squash (sport)) A shot where the ball is driven off a side wall and then strikes the front wall.

Translations

Verb

boast (third-person singular simple present boasts, present participle boasting, simple past and past participle boasted)

1. (intransitive) To brag; to talk loudly in praise of oneself.
   • 2005, Lesley Brown (translator), Plato, Sophist, 235c.

     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.

2. (transitive) To speak of with pride, vanity, or exultation, with a view to self-commendation; to extol.
3. (obsolete) To speak in exulting language of another; to glory; to exult.
4. (squash (sport)) To play a boast shot.
5. (ergative) To possess something special (e.g. as a feature).

Synonyms

• brag

Derived terms

• boastful
• boastfully
• boastworthy
• outboast

Translations

Etymology 2

Verb

boast (third-person singular simple present boasts, present participle boasting, simple past and past participle boasted)

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

References

• “boast”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–present.

Anagrams

• basto, boats, sabot

English

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /?swæ?.?/
• (US) IPA^(key): /?swæ?.?/
• Rhymes: -æ??(r)

Etymology 1

A frequentative form of swag (“to sway”), first attested in 1590, in A Midsummer Night's Dream III.i.79:

• PUCK: What hempen homespuns have we swaggering here?

Verb

swagger (third-person singular simple present swaggers, present participle swaggering, simple past and past participle swaggered)

1. To behave (especially to walk or carry oneself) in a pompous, superior manner.
   • 1845, Benjamin Disraeli, Sybil

     a man who swaggers about London clubs

2. To boast or brag noisily; to bluster; to bully.
   • 1698, Jeremy Collier, A Moral Essay upon Pride

     To be great is not […] to swagger at our footmen.

   • 1724, Jonathan Swift, The Drapier’s Letters, Dublin and London, 1730, Letter 1, p. 14,^[1]

     For the common Soldier when he goes to the Market or Ale-house will offer this Money, and if it be refused, perhaps he will SWAGGER and HECTOR, and Threaten to Beat the BUTCHER or Ale-Wife, or take the Goods by Force, and throw them the bad HALF-PENCE.
3. To walk with a swaying motion.

Derived terms

• swaggerer
• swaggeringly
• swagger it
• aswagger

Translations

Noun

swagger (countable and uncountable, plural swaggers)

1. Confidence, pride.
2. A bold or arrogant strut.
3. A prideful boasting or bragging.

Translations

Adjective

swagger (comparative more swagger, superlative most swagger)

1. (slang, archaic) Fashionable; trendy.
   • 1899, Robert Barr, Jennie Baxter, Journalist

     It is to be a very swagger affair, with notables from every part of Europe, and they seem determined that no one connected with a newspaper shall be admitted.

   • 15 March, 1896, Ernest Rutherford, letter to Mary Newton

     Mrs J.J. [Thomson] looked very well and was dressed very swagger and made a very fine hostess.

   • 1908, Baroness Orczy, The Old Man in the Corner

     Mrs. Morton was well known for her Americanisms, her swagger dinner parties, and beautiful Paris gowns.

Etymology 2

Noun

swagger (plural swaggers)

1. (Australia, New Zealand, historical) Synonym of swagman

References

Anagrams

• waggers