vaunt

English

WOTD – 19 March 2008

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /vɔːnt/
• Rhymes: -ɔːnt
• IPA^(key): /vɑːnt/
• Rhymes: -ɑːnt
• IPA^(key): /vɔnt/
• IPA^(key): /vɑnt/

• Audio (US):

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• Audio (AU):

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Etymology 1

Borrowed from Anglo-Norman vaunter, variant of Old French vanter, from Latin vānus (“vain, boastful”).

(deprecated template usage)

Verb

vaunt (third-person singular simple present vaunts, present participle vaunting, simple past and past participle vaunted)

1. (intransitive) To speak boastfully.
   • 1829 — Washington Irving, Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada, chapter XC

     "The number," said he, "is great, but what can be expected from mere citizen soldiers? They vaunt and menace in time of safety; none are so arrogant when the enemy is at a distance; but when the din of war thunders at the gates they hide themselves in terror."

2. (transitive) To speak boastfully about.
3. (transitive) To boast of; to make a vain display of; to display with ostentation.
   • (Can we date this quote?) Bible, 1 Cor. xiii. 4

     Charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up.

   • (Can we date this quote by John Milton and provide title, author’s full name, and other details?)

     My vanquisher, spoiled of his vaunted spoil.

Synonyms

• (speak boastfully): boast, brag

Derived terms

• vaunter

Translations

speak boastfully — see boast

Noun

vaunt (plural vaunts)

1. A boast; an instance of vaunting.
   • (Can we date this quote by John Milton and provide title, author’s full name, and other details?)

     the spirits beneath, whom I seduced / with other promises and other vaunts

   • 1904, G. K. Chesterton, The Napoleon of Notting Hill, Book II, chapter III

     He has answered me back, vaunt for vaunt, rhetoric for rhetoric.

Translations

Instance of vaunting

• French: vantardise (fr) f
• (deprecated template usage) {{trans-mid}}
• Georgian: ტრაბახი (ṭrabaxi), კვეხნა (ḳvexna)
• Russian: хвастовство́ (ru) n (xvastovstvó)
• Slovak: chvastanie

Etymology 2

(deprecated template usage) [etyl] French avant (“before, fore”). See avant, vanguard.

Noun

vaunt (plural vaunts)

1. (obsolete) The first part.

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Shakespeare to this entry?)

Part or all of this entry has been imported from the 1913 edition of Webster’s Dictionary, which is now free of copyright and hence in the public domain. The imported definitions may be significantly out of date, and any more recent senses may be completely missing.
(See the entry for “vaunt”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.)

Anagrams

• Tuvan