different between bombastic vs boast

English

Alternative forms

• bombastical (archaic)
• bombastick (obsolete)
• bumbastic, bumbastical (obsolete)

Etymology

18th century, from bombast (“padding, stuffing”).

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /b?m?bæs.t?k/
• (US) IPA^(key): /b?m?bæs.t??k/
• Rhymes: -æst?k

Adjective

bombastic (comparative more bombastic, superlative most bombastic)

1. (of a person, their language or writing) showy in speech and given to using flowery or elaborate terms; grandiloquent; pompous

   See Thesaurus:verbose or Thesaurus:arrogant

2. High-sounding but with little meaning.
3. (archaic) Inflated, overfilled.

   Synonyms: inflated, turgid

Antonyms

• (pompous or overly wordy): See Thesaurus:concise

Related terms

Descendants

Translations

Romanian

Etymology

From German bombastisch

Adjective

bombastic m or n (feminine singular bombastic?, masculine plural bombastici, feminine and neuter plural bombastice)

1. bombastic

Declension

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