boastful
Americanadjective
adjective
Usage
What does boastful mean? Boastful is used to describe someone who is known for boasting—bragging, especially in a way that exaggerates or shows excessive pride about the boaster’s skills, possessions, or accomplishments. Boastful is especially used to describe a person who boasts all the time. It can also be used to describe such claims, as in He made boastful claims about all of the awards he had won. Boastful people most often boast about themselves—their skills, their possessions, or the things that they have accomplished—but a person can also be boastful about someone else. A parent might be boastful about their child’s accomplishments, for example. Example: No one has ever actually seen him perform, but that doesn’t stop him from being boastful about how good he is.
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of boastful
First recorded in 1275–1325, boastful is from the Middle English word bostful. See boast 1, -ful
Explanation
Someone who is overly proud and arrogant can be described as boastful. Your boastful classmate is always going on and on about his own amazing achievements and incredible successes. It's perfectly okay to brag about yourself sometimes. A boastful person just doesn't know when to stop talking about how great they are, or what amazing possessions they own, or how successful they are. If you hear yourself talking pretentiously about your record collection or the many languages you can speak, you'll know you're being boastful. That's when it's time to stop, ask some questions, and give someone else a chance to shine.
Vocabulary lists containing boastful
ACT Reading Test: Words to Capture Tone, List 3
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Tone and Point of View, List 5
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Enchanted Air
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Classic Loki, Boastful Loki, and Kid Loki, as they’re so dubbed, arrive like bombs of fun upon the screen.
From Slate • Jul. 14, 2021
Described by Boastful Loki as “a living tempest that consumes matter and energy,” Alioth is what makes sure whatever is sent to the end of time never escapes.
From Los Angeles Times • Jul. 7, 2021
Boastful and charismatic, Aronov arrives in the show’s second act and gives it a hefty dose of humor and hyperbole vis-a-vis the play’s weighty, politically fraught subject matter.
From The Guardian • Jun. 9, 2017
Just to prove the lack of discipline was no fluke, Ryan’s Boastful Bills committed 17 penalties, including five personal fouls.
From New York Times • Oct. 6, 2015
Boastful cowards may impose upon those who do not know them, but are held to be only ridiculous by those who do.
From Favourite Fables in Prose and Verse by Weir, Harrison
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
