braggadocio

braggadocio

English

Etymology

After Braggadocchio, boastful character in Edmund Spenser's The Faerie Queene (1590), apparently a pseudo-Italian coinage.

Pronunciation

• (Italianate) IPA^(key): /bɹaɡaˈdoːt͡ʃo/
• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˌbɹæ.ɡəˈdəʊ.t͡ʃəʊ/
• (US) IPA^(key): /ˌbɹæɡ.əˈdoʊ.ʃiˌoʊ/
• Hyphenation: brag‧ga‧do‧ci‧o

• Audio (US)

  (file)

Noun

braggadocio (countable and uncountable, plural braggadocios or braggadocioes or braggadocii)

1. A braggart.

   Synonyms: blowhard; see also Thesaurus:braggart

   • 1652, Thomas Urquhart, “Εκσκυβαλαυρον (The Jewel)”, in The Works of Sir Thomas Urquhart of Cromarty, Knight‎, Edinburgh: Thomas Maitland Dundrennan, published 1834, →ISBN, page 217:

     […] the Gasconads of France, Rodomontads of Spain, Fanfaronads of Italy, and Bragadochio brags of all other countries, could no more astonish his invincible heart, then would the cheeping of a mouse a bear robbed of her whelps.

2. Empty boasting.

   Synonym: big talk

   • 1847 January – 1848 July, William Makepeace Thackeray, chapter 6, in Vanity Fair […], London: Bradbury and Evans […], published 1848, OCLC 3174108:

     He could not endure his airs as a man of fashion, and laughed heartily at his pompous braggadocio stories.

   • 2018 January 20, Eve Smith, “The techlash against Amazon, Facebook and Google—and what they can do”, in The Economist‎:

     Russia’s use of social media in America’s 2016 presidential race reflected particularly poorly on Facebook, which was seen as doing too little to stamp out deceptive ads and fake news stories. As for nuclear braggadocio on Twitter, let’s not even go there.

Quotations

• For quotations using this term, see Citations:braggadocio.

Related terms

• braggadocious

Translations

braggart — see braggart

empty boasting

Bulgarian: самохвалство (bg) n (samohvalstvo) French: fanfaronnade (fr) f German: Angeberei (de) f, Großspurigkeit (de) f Greek: Ancient Greek: ἀλαζονία f (alazonía) (slang), ἀλαζονεία f (alazoneía) Italian: fanfaronata (it) f, smargiassata (it) f Russian: хвастовство́ (ru) n (xvastovstvó), бахва́льство (ru) n (baxválʹstvo), понты́ (ru) m pl (pontý)

See also

• machismo

Further reading

• braggadocio on Wikipedia.Wikipedia