brag
pronunciation
How to pronounce brag in British English:
UK [bræɡ]
How to pronounce brag in American English:
US [bræɡ]
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- Noun:
- an instance of boastful talk
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- Verb:
- show off
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- Adjective:
- exceptionally good
Word Origin
- brag
- brag: [13] Brag first turned up in English as an adjective, meaning ‘spirited’ or ‘boastful’; the verb and noun did not appear until the 14th century. Where English got the word from, however, remains a mystery. French has braguer ‘brag’, but it is not clear whether English borrowed from French, or vice versa; French did, however, contribute the derivative bragard, which English adopted as braggart [16]. This probably also formed the basis of braggadocio, an Italianate coinage first used by the poet Edmund Spenser as a personification of ‘boastfulness’ in his Faerie Queene 1590.
- brag (n.)
- late 14c., "pomp; arrogance, pride;" see brag (v.); the exact relationship of the forms is uncertain. Meaning "that which is boasted" is from 1530s. As a once-popular poker-like card game, from 1734.
- brag (v.)
- mid-14c., braggen "to make a loud sound," also "to talk boastfully," of obscure origin, perhaps related to bray of a trumpet, or related to the Middle English adjective brag "ostentatious, proud; spirited, brave" (early 14c.), which probably is from Celtic. Other sources suggest Old Norse bragr "the best, the toast (of anything)," also "poetry." Also see braggart for another possibility. Related: Bragged; bragging.
Example
- 1. Sometimes you just want to brag or recount what happened .
- 2. In madrid ministers brag that they have turned a corner .
- 3. It 's torture and it 's definitely not something you 'd want to brag to your friends about if you were the client .
- 4. Yet even though they did not brag about it outside the bunker walls , some of these mercenaries were doing very well indeed .
- 5. Now it can brag of being in a club of perhaps half-a-dozen countries : its agni missile boasts icbm ( intercontinental ballistic missile ) status , defined as having a range of 5500km or more .