boastful

adjective

boast·​ful ˈbōst-fəl 

: given to or marked by boasting : expressing excessive self-pride

a vain, boastful man

A few of the … parents are downright boastful about their sons.

—Jane Gross

… journalists who are only too willing to take at face value the boastful pronouncements of the company's publicity department.

—Jeffrey Young

At the highest levels, the administration's response to the crisis has been sluggish, characterized by boastful rhetoric but stagnant funding.

—The Washington Post

boastfully

ˈbōst-fə-lē 

adverb

If her new acquaintance wants to talk about plants, she might mention a few of her own, never boastfully, but with a pleasant tone of surprise, as if her parlor palm and the other person's had coincidentally attended the same high school.

—David Sedaris

Of the confidence reposed in him by Hudig—the master—he was boastfully and obtrusively proud.

—Joseph Conrad

boastfulness noun

Villars' military and diplomatic career under two kings of France was enormously successful, but his boastfulness and cupidity were notorious.

—David Wykes

Examples of boastful in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

In Greek mythology, Orion was a powerful and talented hunter who incurred the wrath of the gods for being too boastful about his own skills. —Hannah Parry, MSNBC Newsweek, 21 Oct. 2025

Of course, people make boastful statements of dubious merit all the time, but, as our story explains, Robinson has monetized his fantasies by selling development masterclasses to aspiring writers and offering other services for a fee. —Jesse Whittock, Deadline, 26 Sep. 2025

So much of the casual sneaker market these days is either paper-thin minimal, or boastful, cartoonish and oversized. —Todd Plummer, Robb Report, 17 Sep. 2025

Maybe a persona of boastful anger has something in common, and the two persona vectors overlap. —Lance Eliot, Forbes.com, 15 Sep. 2025

Word History

First Known Use

14th century, in the meaning defined above