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adjective
Braggart  adj.  Boastful.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Braggart" Quotes from Famous Books



... last out till we Have duly hardened bones and thews For scouring leagues of swamp and sea Of braggart ...
— Ionica • William Cory (AKA William Johnson)

... in your bunch, doubtless when you got to knowing him every one of you would want him for a chum. He was the kind of fellow that real boys like: not a braggart and not a "sissy," but generally when it came to his turn to bat he smashed the ball for a clean hit. Or if he should happen to strike out, he didn't slam the stick to the ground, but with a smile stepped back and turned a handspring and lit on his feet rooting for the next man ...
— "Say Fellows—" - Fifty Practical Talks with Boys on Life's Big Issues • Wade C. Smith

... his patriotism seemed at times to die away, any little circumstance was sure to revive it at once. No proclaimer of "manifest destiny" ever had more faith than he in the imperial greatness and grandeur to which the republic was to attain. All that in vulgar minds took the shape of braggart boasting, was in his idealized and glorified by his lofty conception of the majestic part which his country was to play in deciding the destinies of mankind. In spite of short-comings he deplored, of perils that he feared, ...
— James Fenimore Cooper - American Men of Letters • Thomas R. Lounsbury

... 1841, Henry A. Wise uttered "a motley compound of eloquence and folly, of braggart impudence and childish vanity, of self-laudation and Virginian narrow-mindedness." After him Hubbard, of Alabama, "began grunting against the tariff." Three days later Black, of Georgia, "poured forth his black bile" ...
— John Quincy Adams - American Statesmen Series • John. T. Morse

... engineers on the staff of a new railroad then building in Colorado, the two boys did their best to make good. How well they succeeded is known to readers of that volume. Their adventures in the Rocky Mountains were truly astounding; some of them, especially those with "Bad Pete," a braggart and scoundrel of the old school, were sometimes mirth-provoking and sometimes tragic. Other adventures were vastly more serious. When the boys reached the crisis of their work it seemed as though every tree in the mountains concealed an enemy. All ...
— The Young Engineers in Mexico • H. Irving Hancock

... laughed disdainfully. "You always were a braggart, I have heard; yet you will need all your wits to save your own ...
— Beatrix of Clare • John Reed Scott

... The enemy had attacked in great strength from south of Arras to the Oise; but everywhere he had been repulsed and held in our battle-zone. The leading articles were confident, the notes by the various military critics were almost braggart. At last the German had been driven to an offensive, and the Allies would have the opportunity they had longed for of proving their superior fighting strength. It was, said one and all, the opening of the last phase ...
— Mr. Standfast • John Buchan

... impossible for anybody to acquire the reputation it confers by the most dexterous mimicry of its outside expressions; for a swift analysis, which drives directly to the heart of the man, instantly detects the impostor behind the braggart, and curtly declares him to lack "the true grit." The word is so close to the thing it names, has so much pith and point, is so tart on the tongue, and so stings the ear with its meaning, that foreigners ignorant of the language might at once feel its significance by its griding utterance as ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 90, April, 1865 • Various

... be fond of contrasting the camp-fire bully and braggart, as one extreme, with the soldier who was frankly afraid of getting killed, as the other. It was his theory that the man who dodged the first few bullets in a battle was quite likely to turn out to be ...
— The Taming of Red Butte Western • Francis Lynde

... was thought of them to be at the pains of shocking one's delicacy intentionally; but they were by no means displeased to be thought "rough." It made them laugh; it was a tribute to their stout-heartedness. Nor was there anything necessarily braggart in this attitude of theirs. As they realized that work would not be readily offered to a man who might quail before its unpleasantness, so it was a matter of bread-and-cheese to them to cultivate "roughness." ...
— Change in the Village • (AKA George Bourne) George Sturt

... Painter's 'Palace of Pleasure' (No. xxxviii.) The original source is Boccaccio's 'Decamerone' (giorn. iii. nov. 9). Shakespeare, after his wont, grafted on the touching story of Helena's love for the unworthy Bertram the comic characters of the braggart Parolles, the pompous Lafeu, and a clown (Lavache) less witty than his compeers. Another original creation, Bertram's mother, Countess of Roussillon, is a charming portrait of old age. In frequency of rhyme and other metrical characteristics the piece closely resembles ...
— A Life of William Shakespeare - with portraits and facsimiles • Sidney Lee

... a courageous man, but his counterpart, a braggart, a bully, or a dandy. In these ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... the best and the worst that was to be known; and perhaps, after all, the worst might prove to be not nearly so bad as he had been led to believe. Alvaros, he was convinced, was not only a blatant braggart, but also an unmitigated liar, and it might be that the foul deed of which he had boasted had never happened, and that the boast was ...
— The Cruise of the Thetis - A Tale of the Cuban Insurrection • Harry Collingwood

... a stiff cambric ruff worn rather fuller than the fashion. He was heavily booted, and sat sideways on a settle with his left hand tucked in his belt and a great right elbow on the board. Something in his pose, half rustic, half braggart, seemed familiar to Gaspard. The next second the two were in ...
— The Path of the King • John Buchan

... against high heaven And heaven's high king his swelling blasphemies. Surely I trust that on his impious head The lightning shall be launched more fiery far Than are the rays of any noonday sun. To meet him with his braggart menaces Stout Polyphontus goes, a gallant soul, Who well can hold the post, so Artemis And all protecting gods his arm will aid. Tell us whose lot ...
— Specimens of Greek Tragedy - Aeschylus and Sophocles • Goldwin Smith

... some lady as the object of his dutiful devotion. She disdained the attentions of the most potent prince if his addresses were not honorable. Nor would she bestow her love on one of whom she was not proud. She would not marry a coward or a braggart, even if he were the owner of ten thousand acres. The knight was encouraged to pay his address to any lady if he was personally worthy of her love, for chivalry created a high estimate of individual merit. The feudal lady ignored all degrees of wealth within her own rank. She was ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume V • John Lord

... the triumphal cocks, where formerly had flaunted the braggart boast of the old "Clarion," and more latterly had appeared the gentle legend of the martyred President, was spread in letters of shame to the eyes of the "Clarion's" owner, the cynic profession of the led captain, of the prostituted ...
— The Clarion • Samuel Hopkins Adams

... no pleasure from gambling with those that are not connected with me by blood. Winning over to-day the beauteous Damayanti of faultless features, I shall regard myself fortunate, indeed, since she it is that hath ever dwelt in my heart.' Hearing these words of that incoherent braggart, Nala in anger desired to cut off his head with a scimitar. With a smile, however, though his eyes were red in anger, king Nala said, 'Let us play. Why do you speak so now? Having vanquished me, you can say anything you like.' Then the play commenced between Pushkara and Nala. And blessed be Nala ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli

... himself—as witness his sword "packed like a hand-saw"—had kept at bay and put to flight now two, anon four, and then seven, and finally eleven of his assailants. We all can see, too, the roguish twinkle in Prince Hal's eyes as the braggart knight embellishes his lying tale with every fresh sentence, and are as nonplussed as he when, the plot discovered, Falstaff finds a way to take credit for his cowardice. Who would not forgive so cajoling ...
— Inns and Taverns of Old London • Henry C. Shelley

... and shrewd Urraca is the first to discover Partenopeus. He and Gaudin perform the usual exploits and suffer the usual inconveniences, but at the end it is still undecided whether the Count of Blois or the Soldan of Persia—a good knight, though a pagan, and something of a braggart—deserves the priceless prize of Melior's hand with the empire of Byzantium to boot. The "election" follows, and after some doubt goes right, while Melior now offers no objection. But the Soldan, in his outrecuidance, demands single combat. He has, ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury

... the fraternity. Such unscrupulous quacks sought also to win over the patient's friends by little attentions, flatteries and innuendoes. Many, said this philosopher, recoil from a man of skill even, if he is a braggart. "When the doctor," he continues, "attended by a man known to the patient, and having a right of entry into the house, advances into the dwelling of the sick man, he should make his appearance in good clothes, with an inclination of the head; he should be ...
— Primitive Psycho-Therapy and Quackery • Robert Means Lawrence

... 1872, and was one of the many works which he produced. In it he pokes gentle fun at a type of Frenchman who comes from the Midi, the area where he himself was born. Tartarin has characteristics which may remind the English-speaking reader of Toad of Toad Hall, a boastful braggart, easily deceived, but good-hearted ...
— Tartarin de Tarascon • Alphonse Daudet

... you know not To rule your self, you would not to a boy else Like Plautus Braggart ...
— Beaumont & Fletcher's Works (1 of 10) - The Custom of the Country • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher

... they were content to accept ideas that threw a pleasant glamour on life. But the coming of Jimmy Simpson altered this agreeable condition of mind. Jimmy was one of those masterful stupid boys who excel at games and physical contests, and triumph over intellectual problems by sheer braggart ignorance. From the first he regarded George with contempt, and when he heard him telling his stories he ...
— The Ghost Ship • Richard Middleton

... during the war, as will be seen from the following instance. There lived at Bucharest a certain Lieut.-Colonel Prince Sturdza, who was a noted braggart and brawler and an inveterate enemy of Austria-Hungary. I did not know him personally, and there was no personal reason for him to begin one day to abuse me publicly in the papers as being an advocate of the Monarchy. ...
— In the World War • Count Ottokar Czernin

... ago Mr. Edward Everett came up from the wilds of Devonshire to study law with Braggart and Pushem, in Chancery Lane. He was placed to board, by a prudent mother, with ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 3, March, 1891 • Various

... idle moments a tout. It was in the latter capacity that Antipas met him, and, pleased with his shrewdness and perfect corruption, had attached him to his house. This had occurred in years previous, and as yet Antipas had found no cause to regret the trust imposed. He was a useful braggart, idle, familiar, and discreet; and he had acquired the dialect of ...
— Mary Magdalen • Edgar Saltus

... for this; but the last part of the curse comes on almost at once and makes him afraid to be alone after dark, while the second is not long delayed. On the eve of setting out once more for Norway, he quarrels with and slays a braggart named Thorbiorn; during the voyage itself he is the unintentional cause of a whole household of men being burnt to death; and lastly, by his own quarrelsome temper, and some "metaphysical aid," he misses the chance of clearing himself by "bearing iron" (ordeal) before King Olaf at Drontheim. ...
— The Flourishing of Romance and the Rise of Allegory - (Periods of European Literature, vol. II) • George Saintsbury

... round Riggs up down in the village—somewhere in a crowd. I want Riggs shown up as the coward, braggart, four-flush that he is. And insulted, slapped, ...
— The Man of the Forest • Zane Grey

... cowardice. The vice of all others which he loathed was brought in and burned in on his own soul. He had lied to his mother, to his conscience, to his God. How could he bear it? And then the poor little weak boy, whom he had pitied and almost scorned for his weakness, had done that which he, braggart as he was, dared not do. The first dawn of comfort came to him in swearing to himself that he would stand by that boy through thick and thin, and cheer him, and help him, and bear his burdens, for the good deed done that night. Then he resolved to write home next ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 5 • Charles Sylvester

... killer of old men? No, Paul. De Brissac and I were on excellent terms. You ought to know me better. I do not climb into windows, especially when the door is always open for me. I am like my sword, loyal, frank, and honest; we scorn braggart's cunning, dark alleys, stealth; we look not at a man's back but into his face; we prefer sunshine to darkness. And listen," tapping his sword: "he who has done this thing, be he never so far away, yet shall this long sword of mine find him and ...
— The Grey Cloak • Harold MacGrath

... fighting wind-mills, who, in time of peace, are "soldiers armed with resolution," but in the real conflict what Shakspeare designates as "soldiers and afeard." There was in our train a young prig, who "played the braggart with his tongue," telling of his brave exploits, like a very Othello recounting the "dangers he passed," ending with a defiant show of how he should act in the event of an attack from marauding Indians, to which ...
— The World As I Have Found It - Sequel to Incidents in the Life of a Blind Girl • Mary L. Day Arms

... the thefts, the Democratic leaders smiled a languid, cowardly assent, and let the enemy prepare for war. And war came. It might have been prevented; it might, beyond all doubt, have been limited and crushed; but the hand of the braggart South had been so long on the throat of the doughfaces, that they dared not move, and the doughfaces were in power. The country at large has had to pay dearly for that old doughface love for the South; it is paying every day ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. II. July, 1862. No. 1. • Various

... abundantly that animals have no souls. The employment of a lover is that of a mountebank, of a soldier, of a quack, of a buffoon, of a prince, of a ninny, of a king, of an idler, of a monk, of a dupe, of a blackguard, of a liar, of a braggart, of a sycophant, of a numskull, of a frivolous fool, of a blockhead, of a know-nothing, of a knave. An employment from which Jesus abstained, in imitation of whom folks of great understanding likewise disdain it; it is a vocation ...
— Droll Stories, Complete - Collected From The Abbeys Of Touraine • Honore de Balzac

... de Flegn hosten," "He hears the flies coughing." If a man is full of great schemes, he is told, "In Gedanken foert de Bur ok in't Kutsch." "In thought the peasant, too, drives in a coach." A man who boasts is asked, "Pracher! haest ok Lues, oder schuppst di man so?" "Braggart! have you really lice, or do you only scratch ...
— Chips From A German Workshop. Vol. III. • F. Max Mueller

... thus tortured out of their proud and tyrannous existence! ... their strength made strengthless, their arrogance brought to naught, their egotism and vain-glory beaten to the dust! Ah, ah! thou that wert the complacent braggart of love,—the self-sufficient proclaimer of thine own prowess, where is thy boasted vigor now? ... Writhe on, good fool! ... thy little day is done! ... All honor to the Silver Nectar whose ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli

... the tone of a braggart, but of a man who knew what he was talking about. Hooker did not return to California, but in a few weeks Captain Hooker received from the President ...
— Lincoln's Yarns and Stories • Alexander K. McClure

... loaded) serv'd to show It might be better they shook hands—but no; When each opines himself, though frighten'd, right Each is, in courtesy, oblig'd to fight! And they DID fight: from six full measured paces The unbeliever pulled his trigger first; And fearing, from the braggart's ugly faces, The whizzing lead had whizz'd its very worst, Ran up, and with a DUELISTIC fear (His ire evanishing like morning vapors), Found nim possess'd of one remaining ear, Who in a manner sudden and uncouth, Had given, not lent, the other ear to truth; For while the surgeon ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton

... however, was no new trait in von Herzmann. He always possessed it, but it stopped just short of blind egotism. Perhaps therein could be found the reason for his fame and his success. He was no blundering, egobefuddled braggart riding for a fall; he was a splendid pilot, a careful tactician, fearless when fearlessness was needed and cautious when caution would bring greater reward than blind valor. In short, his fame rested securely upon ability. He was one ...
— Aces Up • Covington Clarke

... of presenting the necklace, though unauthorized by Shakespeare, had the full approval of the company, and set them in good humour to receive Major Camperton as Armado the braggart. Nothing calculated to stimulate jealousy occurred again till the fifth act; and then there arose full cause ...
— A Laodicean • Thomas Hardy

... brethren quelled Ward off the wolves whose hides should line thy throne, Wert thou no coward, no recreant to the bone, No liar in spirit and soul and heartless heart, No slave, no traitor—nought of all thou art. A thing like thee, made big with braggart breath, Whose tongue shoots fire, whose promise poisons trust, Would cast a shieldless soldier forth to death And wreck three realms to sate his rancorous lust With ruin of them who have weighed and found ...
— Locrine - A Tragedy • Algernon Charles Swinburne

... to know?" said Amyas, recovering himself. "Look here, brother Frank! I've thought it all over in the garden; and I was an ass and a braggart for talking to you as I did last night. Of course you love her! Everybody must; and I was a fool for not recollecting that; and if you love her, your taste and mine agree, and what can be better? I think you are a sensible ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley

... all the glitter of novelty has fallen off, and when they have been behind the scenes and found how bare and gloomy was the framework of the scene they admired. All illusions may be gone; the hero may have sunk into the cowardly braggart; the saint into the hypocritical sinner; the noble aspirant into a man whose mouth alone utters but empty words which his heart can never feel; but still true love remains, "nor alters where it alteration ...
— Brave Men and Women - Their Struggles, Failures, And Triumphs • O.E. Fuller

... all and all, a man—eats out his heart for you; desires only to live for you, only to die for you, only to lie at your feet afterward—that is nothing to you. You do not even care to listen. You would rather hear through a braggart, indecent mouth that ought to be sewed up what Rodin said about Phidias. It seems finer to you to be an artist than a woman, and you ...
— The Penalty • Gouverneur Morris

... promised to drown all the people of Toula and deliver the town into his hands. This extraordinary offer, made by a monk named Kravkof, was at first received with incredulous laughter, and it was some time before the czar and his council could be brought to listen to the words of an idle braggart, as they deemed the stranger. In the end the czar asked ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 8 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris

... full the hateful traitor's meed, And bade his hordes advance Through Belgium's cities towards the fields of France; And when at last our patient island race, By the attempted wrong Made fierce and strong, Flung back the challenge in the braggart's face, Oh then, while martial music filled the air, Clarion and fife and bagpipe and the drum, Calling to men to muster, march, and dare, Oh, then thy day, JOHN BRADBURY, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, September 2nd, 1914 • Various

... this distracted National mind: a rushing against domestic Traitors, a rushing against foreign Despots. Mad movements both, restrainable by no known rule; strongest passions of human nature driving them on: love, hatred; vengeful sorrow, braggart Nationality also vengeful,—and pale Panic over all! Twelve Hundred slain Patriots, do they not, from their dark catacombs there, in Death's dumb-shew, plead (O ye Legislators) for vengeance? Such was the destructive rage of these Aristocrats on the ever-memorable Tenth. ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle

... once our bravest, but in vain, Can'st thou sit tamely, with the field unfought, And see this braggart glory in his gain? Where is thy god, that Eryx? Hath he taught Thine arm its vaunted cleverness for naught? To us what booteth thy Trinacrian name, Thy spoil-hung house, thy roof with prizes fraught?" Entellus said: "My spirit is the same. ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil - Translated into English Verse by E. Fairfax Taylor • Virgil

... then did the citizens of Cooper's home village hold a mass meeting and pass resolutions to the effect that Cooper had rendered "himself odious to a greater portion of the citizens of this community," and why should Fraser's Magazine, three thousand miles away, call Cooper "a liar, a bilious braggart, a full jackass, an insect, a ...
— Stories of Authors, British and American • Edwin Watts Chubb

... days but little out of the ordinary happened. Dick took especial care to avoid Lew Flapp, and the tall youth did not attempt to bother him. It was soon learned that Flapp was more of a braggart than anything else, and then even some of the smaller boys grew less ...
— The Rover Boys in Camp - or, The Rivals of Pine Island • Edward Stratemeyer

... the man above mentioned as killed by the sheep man, was a typical rough, dark, swarthy, low-browed, as loud-mouthed as he was ignorant. He was a braggart, but none ...
— The Story of the Outlaw - A Study of the Western Desperado • Emerson Hough

... says one of my Notes, "and how all Germans, Prussian and Anti-Prussian alike, flung up their caps, with unanimous LEBE-HOCH, at the news of Rossbach, has often been remarked; and indeed is still almost touching to see. The perhaps bravest Nation in the world, though the least braggart, very certainly EIN TAPFERES VOLK (as their Goethe calls them); so long insulted, snubbed and trampled on, by a luckier, not a braver:—has not your exultant Dauphiness got a beautiful little dose administered her; and is gone off in foul shrieks, and pangs of the interior,—let ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XVIII. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Seven-Years War Rises to a Height.—1757-1759. • Thomas Carlyle

... from it were taken the characters of the Parasite and the Captain. If this is a fault, the fault is the ignorance of the Poet; not that he intended to be guilty of theft. That so it is, you will now be enabled to judge. The Colax is {a Play} of Menander's; in it there is Colax, a Parasite, and a braggart Captain: he does not deny that he has transferred these characters into his Eunuch from the Greek; but assuredly he does deny this, that he was aware that those pieces had been already translated into Latin. But if it ...
— The Comedies of Terence - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Notes • Publius Terentius Afer, (AKA) Terence

... braggart!" said the miller. "We've known that for a long time; we knew it when you wrote to the paper saying the Great ...
— In Midsummer Days and Other Tales • August Strindberg

... 'member you by.' Says he, 'Burlman Rennuls,' dat's me, you know, Bushie; 'Burlman Rennuls,' says he, 'you's 'tirely welcome to de skelps, ef you kin take 'em widout cuttin' an' spilin' de skin.' H-yah, h-yah, h-yah!" And the black braggart laughed as sincerely as if he were for the moment self-deceived into thinking that he was dealing in facts. But quickly recovering his lofty air, which had vanished while he laughed, the Fighting Negro thus proceeded with his observations upon the lights ...
— Burl • Morrison Heady

... fortune, and which he treated as merely so much oil, with which to lubricate the machinery of his great enterprise. She had heard, at various times, the embittered details of the disappearance of this money, little by little. Nearly a quarter of it, all told, had been appropriated by a sleek old braggart of a company-promoter, who had cozened Joel into the belief that London could be best approached through him. When at last this wretch was kicked downstairs, the effect had been only to make room for a fresh lot of bloodsuckers. There were so-called ...
— The Market-Place • Harold Frederic

... like Damocles' sword over the head of every samurai and often assumed a morbid character. In the name of Honor, deeds were perpetrated which can find no justification in the code of Bushido. At the slightest, nay, imaginary insult, the quick-tempered braggart took offense, resorted to the use of the sword, and many an unnecessary strife was raised and many an innocent life lost. The story of a well-meaning citizen who called the attention of a bushi to a flea jumping on his back, and who was forthwith cut in two, for the simple and ...
— Bushido, the Soul of Japan • Inazo Nitobe

... his patron's memory, that when Sallust described him as having a brazen face, and a shameless mind, he lashed the historian in a most bitter satire [882], as "a bull's-pizzle, a gormandizer, a braggart, and a tippler, a man whose life and writings were equally monstrous;" besides charging him with being "a most unskilful plagiarist, who borrowed the language of Cato and other old writers." It is related, that, in his youth, having escaped from slavery by the contrivance of some of his friends, ...
— The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars, Complete - To Which Are Added, His Lives Of The Grammarians, Rhetoricians, And Poets • C. Suetonius Tranquillus

... duty." When we have risen to that level and are content to stand there, with no thought of self, but only of our country and what we owe her, we need wince at no hostile sneer nor dread any foreign combination. Granted that we have been a little boyish and braggart, as was perhaps not unnatural in a nation hardly out of its teens, our present trial is likely to make men of us, and to leave us, like our British cousins, content with the pleasing consciousness that we are the supreme of creation and under no ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 50, December, 1861 • Various

... glitter, and I could not see beneath the surface. I did not know then that it might take more courage to refuse to fight and face the looks and scorn of some people than to go and meet an adversary in the field, after the braggart fashion of some of our French neighbours, whose grand idea of honour is to go out early some morning to meet an enemy about some petty, contemptible quarrel, fence for a few moments till one or the other is pricked or scratched, and then cry, "Ah, mon ami! mon ami!" ...
— Gil the Gunner - The Youngest Officer in the East • George Manville Fenn

... adventure during his life on the continent, which would not do to write down here, he was as little of a boaster as any man I ever met, and, while I am in the truth-telling business, I was as great a braggart of my inches as ever drew the long-bow—in that line, I mean. Gods! I flush up hot, even now, when I think of it. So I talked a great deal and found myself infinitely pleased with Brandon's conversational powers, which were rare; being no less than the capacity for saying nothing, and ...
— When Knighthood Was in Flower • Charles Major

... partly by our friend, as human as the greatest and the best. As the naturalist, with laborious care, defines the characteristics of the ugly insect, buzzing, and stinging, and preying on the weaker, so must the writer give a portion of his attention to the microscopic bully, braggart, and boasting coward of the human species. In the one case, it is science—in the ...
— The Last of the Foresters • John Esten Cooke

... Scar'amouch, a braggart and fool, most valiant in words, but constantly being drubbed by Harlequin. Scaramouch is a common character in Italian farce, originally meant in ridicule of the Spanish don, and therefore dressed in Spanish costume. Our clown is an imbecile old idiot, and wholly unlike the dashing poltroon ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer

... this allusion to Barker, nor the after-settling of her handsome features into a dogged determination equal to his own. His blind fury against the three partners did not touch her curiosity; she was only struck with the evident depth of his emotion. He had never been a braggart; his hostility had always been lazy and cynical. Remembering this, she had a faint stirring of respect for the undoubted courage and consciousness of strength shown in this wild but single-handed crusade against ...
— The Three Partners • Bret Harte

... haue not yet toucht all, for hee hath in eyther shoo as much taffaty for his tyings, as would serue for an ancient: which serueth him (if you will haue the mysterie of it) of the owne accord for a shoo-rag. A souldior and a braggart he is (thats concluded) he ietteth strouting, dancing on his toes with his hands vnder his sides. If you talke with him, hee makes a dish-cloath of his owne Countrey in comparison of Spaine; but ...
— The Vnfortunate Traveller, or The Life Of Jack Wilton - With An Essay On The Life And Writings Of Thomas Nash By Edmund Gosse • Thomas Nash

... to be that!" said the man, with a braggart laugh and swagger. "I tell ye, mar, we're going to have ...
— Cudjo's Cave • J. T. Trowbridge

... You've always jawed such a lot about the French Revolution, and a good deal too about your own doings. A time may be coming, and that before long, when every one will have a chance to show whether he's a braggart ...
— The Dramatic Works of Gerhart Hauptmann - Volume I • Gerhart Hauptmann

... She is. I'll take the tone she speaks in 'gainst the word, For fifty crowns.—I have not told you all About the ring; though I would sooner die Than play the braggart!—yet, as truth is truth, And told by halves, may from a simple thing, By misconstruction, to a monster grow, I'll tell ...
— The Love-Chase • James Sheridan Knowles

... the terror of this sinful town, Care if a liveried lord or smile or frown? Who cannot flatter, and detest who can, Tremble before a noble serving-man? O my fair mistress, Truth! shall I quit thee 200 For huffing, braggart, puff'd nobility? Thou, who since yesterday hast roll'd o'er all The busy, idle blockheads of the ball, Hast thou, O Sun! beheld an emptier sort, Than such as swell this bladder of a court? Now pox on those who show a court in wax! It ought to bring all courtiers ...
— The Poetical Works Of Alexander Pope, Vol. 1 • Alexander Pope et al

... that are stranger than fiction. And so when the Commissioner speaks of the Force disappearing and its work being forgotten we must enter a protest against this being read except in the light of the well-known habit of these men to keep religiously far away from the braggart spirit. The Force has undergone changes and may ultimately disappear in so far as the present form of organization is concerned, but those of us who have known the country and the men all through the years affirm ...
— Policing the Plains - Being the Real-Life Record of the Famous North-West Mounted Police • R.G. MacBeth

... groat a day with rations. And once when a Spanish soldier came strutting forward between the lines, flourishing his weapon, and defying all persons in general—Ben stept forth, as I hear; fenced that braggart Spaniard, since no other would do it; and ended by soon slitting him in two, and so silencing him! Ben's war-tuck, to judge by the flourish of his pen, must have had a ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1, April, 1851 • Various

... high ideas which the heroes entertain of themselves and each other. Agamemnon's stately behaviour, Menelaus' irritation, Nestor's experience, Ulysses' cunning, are all productive of no effect; when they have at last arranged a single combat between the coarse braggart Ajax and Hector, the latter will not fight in good earnest, as Ajax is his cousin. Achilles is treated worst: after having long stretched himself out in arrogant idleness, and passed his time in the company of Thersites the buffoon, he falls upon ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art - and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel trans John Black

... Peire Vidal. On one occasion he caused himself to be sewn into a wolfskin and ran about the fields; but he was set upon by dogs and so badly mangled that he nearly succumbed to his wounds. He was an insufferable braggart, but never had any success in love. The prince of caricatures, however, was the German knight and minnesinger, Ulrich of Lichtenstein. He is responsible for a novel in prose, entitled The Service of Woman, which is faintly reminiscent of Goethe's Werther. As a page he commenced his glorious ...
— The Evolution of Love • Emil Lucka

... of the country. I've been too busy earning a holiday. But I've earned it all right." He turned to emphasize his boast with a nod toward Millicent. She blushed. His very chauffeur must redden at his braggart air, she thought. The Tudor castle ...
— Life at High Tide - Harper's Novelettes • Various

... braggart and empty windbag, he had taken but one good care, and that was of his own skin. Unlike other less fortunate Royalists of France, he neither fought in the country nor braved dangers in town. He played a safer game—crossed the frontier and constituted ...
— El Dorado • Baroness Orczy

... genius of American liberty and power, as well as to the memory of the immortal heroes of the war of Independence, who first taught manhood to the nations, and hurled to the dust, beneath their feet, the foul and blood-stained braggart who had sought to build up her despotic rule upon their virgin shores. In no way can America so justify the purity and sincerity of her soul in relation to her institutions, as by hurling them against ...
— Ridgeway - An Historical Romance of the Fenian Invasion of Canada • Scian Dubh

... superstition in question—of course you have it—is that there is no salvation but through Europe. Our salvation is here, if we have eyes to see it, and the salvation of Europe into the bargain; that is, if Europe is to be saved, which I rather doubt. Of course you'll call me a bird of freedom, a braggart, a waver of the stars and stripes; but I'm in the delightful position of not minding in the least what any one calls me. I haven't a mission; I don't want to preach; I have simply arrived at a state of mind; I ...
— The Point of View • Henry James

... and as he had a certain amount of cleverness about him, he tried to make it appear that he knew a great deal more about things than he really did. True Blue instinctively discovered that he was a braggart and inclined to ...
— True Blue • W.H.G. Kingston

... a false Imperialism. There is the Imperialism of the vulgar braggart, who thinks that one Englishman can fight ten men of any other nationality under the sun; and there is the Imperialism of the man of thought, who believes in the destiny of the English race, who does not shrink from the responsibilities of power ...
— Successful Recitations • Various

... to General Taylor, whose "rough and ready" blow Struck terror to the rancheros of braggart Mexico; May his country ne'er forget his deeds, and ne'er forget to show She holds him worthy of a place at ...
— As I Remember - Recollections of American Society during the Nineteenth Century • Marian Gouverneur

... boy, and though he had discovered that the professor was something of a humbug, and a good deal of a braggart, it had not for a moment occurred to him that he would prove dishonest. Even now he did not want to believe it, though he was nervously apprehensive ...
— The Young Musician - or, Fighting His Way • Horatio Alger

... will pray you to cast your eyes over the following anecdote, that is now going the round of the papers, and respects the commutation of the punishment of that wretched, fool-hardy Barbes, who, on his trial, seemed to invite the penalty which has just been remitted to him. You recollect the braggart's speech: "When the Indian falls into the power of the enemy, he knows the fate that awaits him, and submits his head to the knife:—I ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray

... words of this madcap, who has no thought for the calamity it would be if we were to lose the battle? It is a matter too important to be left for settlement to the brains of a young Gascon.' I answered him, 'Sir, let me assure you that I am no braggart, nor so hare-brained as you consider me. All we have to do is not to go and attack the enemy in a stronghold, as we did at La Bicocca; but M. d'Enghien has too many good and veteran captains about him to commit such an error. The only question ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume IV. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot

... being a party of fine ladies at my back full gladly would I have retired, had not the young braggart swaggered to my front ...
— The Black Wolf's Breed - A Story of France in the Old World and the New, happening - in the Reign of Louis XIV • Harris Dickson

... time with M. de Saintonge, and he muttered, with a sneer, that it was not difficult to see the end, or that within the year the young braggart would sink to be a gaming-house bully. I said nothing, but I confess that I thought otherwise; the lad's disposition of his money and his provision for the future seeming to me so remarkable as to set ...
— From the Memoirs of a Minister of France • Stanley Weyman

... and, placing these typified traits in juxtaposition in their conflict and contrast, struck the spark of comedy. Downright, as his name indicates, is "a plain squire"; Bobadill's humour is that of the braggart who is incidentally, and with delightfully comic effect, a coward; Brainworm's humour is the finding out of things to the end of fooling everybody: of course he is fooled in the end himself. But it was not Jonson's theories alone ...
— Every Man In His Humour • Ben Jonson

... Well, to suit the incidents and characterisation to Shakespeare's developed knowledge of, and experience with, Florio. There are several small but significant links of description between the Parolles of 1598 and the enlarged Armado of the same date. Both of these characters are represented as braggart soldiers and also as linguists, which evidently reflect Florio's quasi-military connection with Southampton and his ...
— Shakespeare's Lost Years in London, 1586-1592 • Arthur Acheson

... 'When the wicked, even mine enemies and my foes, came upon me to eat up my flesh, they stumbled and fell' (Psalm xxvii. 2). Is it fanciful to hear in that triumphant chant an echo of Goliath's boast about giving his flesh to the fowls and the beasts, and a vision of the braggart as he tottered and lay prostrate? Observe, too, the contemptuous reiteration of 'the Philistine,' which occurs six times in the four verses (48-51). National feeling speaks in that. There is triumph ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren

... telling the farmer and his boys a long and brilliant tale of his travels. He posed as a rich young fellow traveling in the present manner only for the novelty. Austin had a poor opinion of his methods and modes of travel, and decided that his companion was a cheap braggart, ...
— The Hero of Hill House • Mable Hale

... receiving the letter from Cortes, Narvaez turned it into ridicule, handing it about among his officers, speaking of us all as traitors whom he would put to death without mercy. He declared he would cut off and eat the ears of Cortes, and a great deal of such braggart nonsense, and of course made no answer to the letters. Just at this time Father Olmedo arrived, bringing with him the private letters and presents. He went in the first place to wait upon Narvaez, intending to assure him that Cortes would ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. IV. • Robert Kerr

... some men in such poverty and distress as to need the help of others. What does that braggart man mean when he says, "None shall prevail over me; I have and have scattered riches boundless"? Does he not know that there is a Divine eye that sees him? Have not We created him with a capacity of distinguishing between the two ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books, Volume XIII. - Religion and Philosophy • Various

... colors!" exclaimed Sir Hokus, proudly touching Dorothy's hair ribbon, which still adorned his arm. "Come, my good Lion, let us dispatch this braggart ...
— The Royal Book of Oz • L. Frank Baum

... arrival of the President, talked excitedly, speculating what would happen next. "It was stated," says Welles in his diary, "that Pope was falling back, intending to retreat within the Washington entrenchments, Blair, who has known him intimately, says he is a braggart and a liar, with some courage, perhaps, but not much capacity. The general conviction is that he is a failure here, and there is a belief . . . that he has not been seconded and sustained as he should ...
— Lincoln • Nathaniel Wright Stephenson

... square, and, holding a loaded pistol in each hand, which he had not dared to discharge even into the dead body of the murdered man, he cut a caper, and, holding up the innocent weapons, called out, "These have done the business!" But he lied, the braggart, and boasted of a crime which was committed ...
— Massacres Of The South (1551-1815) - Celebrated Crimes • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... Sholto's step slowed, and lost its braggart strut and confidence. Behind him Laurence chuckled and laughed, smiting his thigh in his ...
— The Black Douglas • S. R. Crockett

... Milfort's book is very interesting, but as the man himself was evidently a hopeless liar and braggart, it can only be trusted where it was not for his interest to tell a falsehood. His book was written after McGillivray's death, the object being to claim for himself the glory belonging to the half-breed chief. He ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume One - From the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, 1769-1776 • Theodore Roosevelt

... the Eagle-hunter, The valiant fate-confronter, The soldier brave, and blunter Of speech than BISMARCK's self? This bungler all-disgracing, This braggart all-debasing. This spurious sportsman, chasing No ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., September 20, 1890 • Various

... Ye stiff-necked braggart!" bawled the priest. "Out wid y'r nonsense, and what good are y' thinkin' ye'll do—? Stir your stumps, y' ...
— Lords of the North • A. C. Laut

... three-score and upward. From the first scene we get this impression, and in the scene with Oswald it is repeatedly confirmed. His beard is grey. 'Ancient ruffian,' 'old fellow,' 'you stubborn ancient knave, you reverent braggart'—these are some of the expressions applied to him. 'Sir,' he says to Cornwall, 'I am too old to learn.' If his age is not remembered, we fail to realise the full beauty of his thoughtlessness of himself, his incessant care of the King, his light-hearted indifference to fortune or ...
— Shakespearean Tragedy - Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth • A. C. Bradley

... this Peschiera boasted to me. He effected it not, of course, openly, but in some disguise. I am sufficiently, however, in his confidence—any man may be that with so audacious a braggart—to deter him from renewing his attempt for some days. Meanwhile, I or yourself will leave discovered some surer home than this, to which you can remove, and then will be the proper time to take back your daughter. And for the present, if you will send ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... and golden as they went by, an army of white geese marched aside in braggart protest. Ursula was light as a white ball of down. Skrebensky drifted beside her, indefinite, his old from loosened, and another self, grey, vague, drifting out as from a bud. ...
— The Rainbow • D. H. (David Herbert) Lawrence

... touched to the quick, and willing to show that a Netherlander would lead wherever Spaniards dared to follow, Aremberg allowed himself to commit the grave error for which he was so deeply to atone. Disregarding the dictates of his own experience and the arrangements of his superior, he yielded to the braggart humor of his soldiers, which he had not, like Alva, learned ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... been in the Indies, where the herb grows, and where he himself and a dozen other gentlemen had for the space of one-and-twenty weeks known no other nutriment than the fume of tobacco. This again was tolerably "steep" even for this Falstaff-like braggart. He continues with more bombast in praise of the medicinal virtues of the herb—virtues which were then very firmly and widely believed in—and is replied to by Cob, the anti-tobacconist, who, with ...
— The Social History of Smoking • G. L. Apperson

... the braggart in a moment will give in; The snare for some is pleasant, For the biter ...
— La Boheme • Giuseppe Giacosa and Luigi Illica

... religion, an open foe of business scruple, and the avowed champion of every sort of artifice and device employed in ancient, mediaeval, or modern finance to further his own selfish desires, in the minimum of time, and at whatever cost to his fellow-man. In his cups he was a witty, though arrogant, braggart. In his home he was petulant and childish. Of real business acumen and constructive wisdom, he had none. He would hew his way to wealth, if need be, openly defiant of God, man, or the devil. Or he would work in subtler ways, through deceit, jugglery, or ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking

... shipwright just passing away at the further end might be the shadow of Russian Peter himself. So, the doors of the great patent safe at last close upon me, and I take boat again: somehow, thinking as the oars dip, of braggart Pistol and his brood, and of the quiet monsters of the Yard, with their 'We don't particularly want to do it; but if it must be ...
— The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens

... sat straight up. His idle braggart words of a few moments before came home to him. In Kibei he found no encouragement. After all Kibei was a samurai; harsh, but with the courage of his caste and profession. He spoke openly—"It was an outrageous deed. To sell a samurai woman to such a life! It stinks. This comes of bringing in ...
— The Yotsuya Kwaidan or O'Iwa Inari - Tales of the Tokugawa, Volume 1 (of 2) • James S. De Benneville

... Known all over the border. Gulden's no braggart. But he's been known to talk. He was a sailor—a pirate. Once he was shipwrecked. Starvation forced him to be a cannibal. He told this in California, and in Nevada camps. But no one believed him. A few years ago he got snowed-up in the mountains back of Lewiston. He ...
— The Border Legion • Zane Grey

... afterwards your father would pluck him softly by the sleeve and whisper in his ear to learn if there was any small vow of which he could relieve him, or if he would deign to perform some noble deed of arms upon his person. And if the man were a braggart and would go no further, your father would be silent and none would know it. But if he bore himself well, your father would spread his fame far and wide, but never make mention ...
— Sir Nigel • Arthur Conan Doyle

... Away with the braggart!" the Laconians were clamouring. The Athenians answered in kind. Already a dark sailor was drawing a dirk. Everything promised broken heads, and perhaps blood, when Leonidas and his friend,—by ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis

... stupid Chinese age, in which no new or grand revelations of nature are granted, because they are ignorantly and insolently repelled, instead of being diligently and humbly sought. The difference between the ancient fiction of the mad braggart defying the lightning and the modern historical picture of Franklin drawing it towards his kite, in order that he might the more profoundly study that which was set before him to be studied (or it would not have been there), happily expresses to my mind ...
— Speeches: Literary and Social • Charles Dickens

... suppress his indignation when at a little distance he saw his mustang, which this treacherous braggart had ...
— Joe's Luck - Always Wide Awake • Horatio Alger, Jr.

... dinner party passed off pleasantly, and as old Sanders lighted his cigar he confided to Diotti, with a braggart's assurance, that when he was a youngster he was the best fiddler for twenty miles around. "I tell you there is nothing like a fiddler to catch a petticoat," he said, with a sharp nudge of his elbow into Diotti's ribs. "When I played ...
— The Fifth String, The Conspirators • John Philip Sousa

... contingency of a perseverance in the refusal of that legislature to right the people of Ireland." Accordingly, a large concourse of people assembled at the Corn-exchange, and were addressed by the demagogue in that braggart style which he well knew would win its way to their feelings. In his speech Mr. O'Connell intimated his intention of forming a new association, the exertions of which were to be directed to obtain for Ireland a greater share in the representation of the United Kingdom. He developed ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan

... witty in putting down a young braggart whom he met at dinner at a country-house. There are still to be found, like the bones of dead asses in a field newly ploughed, in some parts of the country, youths, who are so hopelessly behind their age, and indeed every age, as to look upon authorship as degrading, all knowledge, save ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 2 • Grace & Philip Wharton

... himself alone with it to the sea. But in the surf he had to abandon it to save himself. It had perhaps drifted ashore, and might be found; for himself, he abandoned his claim to the reward. Had he looked abashed or mortified, Jenny felt that she might have relented, but the braggart was as all-satisfied, as confident and boastful as ever. Nevertheless, as his eye seemed to seek hers, she was constrained, in mere politeness, to add her own to her father's condolences. "I suppose," she hesitated, ...
— Colonel Starbottle's Client and Other Stories • Bret Harte

... Count was a great braggart and an empty word he spake: "Great wrongs he put upon me, he of Bivar, the Cid. Within my very palace much shame to me he did: He gave no satisfaction though he struck my brother's son; And the lands in my keeping ...
— The Lay of the Cid • R. Selden Rose and Leonard Bacon

... Will you be put in mind of his blind fortune, Which was your shame, by this unholy braggart, 'Fore ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon

... A braggart among the French officers, one Vannes by name, begged to be allowed to sally forth with a couple of hundred men and rout the audacious provincials. Vergor sanctioned the enterprise, and the boaster marched proudly ...
— The Raid From Beausejour; And How The Carter Boys Lifted The Mortgage • Charles G. D. Roberts

... sister of the other. Colonel Bath has necessarily united all suffrages. He is of course a very little stagey; he reminds us that his author had had a long theatrical apprenticeship: he is something too much d'une piece. But as a study of the brave man who is almost more braggart than brave, of the generous man who will sacrifice not only generosity but bare justice to "a hogo of honour," he is admirable, and up to his time almost unique. Ordinary writers and ordinary readers have never ...
— Amelia (Complete) • Henry Fielding

... the braggart shout For some blind glimpse of Freedom, link itself, Through madness, hated by the wise, to ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike

... Walter Scott was a devoted adherent of the house of Hanover. When George IV. visited Edinburgh, Scott was completely carried away by his loyal enthusiasm. He could not see that the man before him was a drunkard and braggart. He viewed him as an incarnation of all the noble traits that ought to hedge about a king. He snatched up a wine-glass from which George had just been drinking and carried it away to be an object of reverence for ever after. Nevertheless, ...
— Famous Affinities of History, Vol 1-4, Complete - The Romance of Devotion • Lyndon Orr

... battle of Queenston Heights Sheaffe succeeded Brock in command of the British, and Smyth succeeded Van Rensselaer in command of the Americans. Sheaffe was a harsh martinet and a third-rate commander. Smyth, a notorious braggart, was no commander at all. He did, however, succeed in getting Sheaffe to conclude an armistice that fully equalled Prevost's in its disregard of British interests. After making the most of it for a month he ended it on November 19, and began manoeuvring ...
— The War With the United States - A Chronicle of 1812 - Volume 14 (of 32) in the series Chronicles of Canada • William Wood

... attention to this play. 'Tis not composed in the hackneyed style, nor yet like other plays, nor are there in it any ribald lines [12] unfit for utterance: here is neither the perjured procurer, nor the artful courtesan, nor yet the braggart captain. Don't you be afraid because I've said that there's war between the Aetoliains and the Eleans. There (pointing), at a distance, beyond the scenes, the battles will be fought. For this were almost impossible for a Comic ...
— The Captiva and The Mostellaria • Plautus

... braggart," said the glover in high wrath; "thy loves and thy battles are alike apocryphal. If thou must needs lie, which I think is thy nature, canst thou invent no falsehood that may at least do thee some credit? Do I not see through thee, as I could see the light through the horn of a base lantern? Do I ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott

... from the life of tradesmen; there appear the— here also inevitable—"Fuller," then the "Ropemaker," the "Dyer," the "Salt-man," the "Female Weavers," the "Rascal"; other pieces give sketches of character, as the "Forgetful," the "Braggart," the "Man of 100,000 sesterces";(10) or pictures of other lands, the "Etruscan Woman," the "Gauls," the "Cretan," "Alexandria"; or descriptions of popular festivals, as the "Compitalia," the "Saturnalia," "Anna Perenna," the "Hot Baths"; or parodies ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen

... me face this braggart myself. Who art thou?" he added, addressing the young knight who had thus boldly ...
— Hero Tales and Legends of the Rhine • Lewis Spence

... to operate against Richmond by the flank. General Pope from his infamous orders greatly incensed the people of the South, and from his vain boasting gained for himself the sobriquet of "Pope the Braggart." He ordered every citizen within his lines or living near them to either take the oath of allegiance to the United States or to be driven out of the country as an enemy of the Union. No one was to have any communication ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert

... did advance Itself o'er me: such men as he saw there I saw at court, and worse, and more. Low fear Becomes the guilty, not th' accuser; then Shall I, none's slave, of high born or rais'd men Fear frowns, and my mistress, Truth! betray thee To th' huffing braggart, puft nobility? No, no; thou which since yesterday hast been Almost about the whole world, hast thou seen, O Sun! in all thy journey vanity Such as swells the bladder of our court? I Think he which made your waxen garden, and Transported ...
— English Satires • Various

... and who hath obtained it? If a man is of high degree, adulation and envy almost kill him; if poor, everybody is ready to trample and despise him. If one would prosper, he must set his mind upon being an intriguer; if one would gain respect, let him be a boaster or braggart; if one would be godly, and attend church and approach the altar, he is dubbed a hypocrite, if he abstain from doing so, he becomes at once an antichrist or a heretic; if he is light-hearted, he is called a scoffer, if silent, a morose cur; if he practises honesty, he ...
— The Visions of the Sleeping Bard • Ellis Wynne

... that quarrels between nations which cannot be accommodated without loss of self-respect on the one side or the other, had better be fought out in resolute and honourable war. He is the sworn foe of the bully or the braggart. Cruelty is hateful to him. The patriotic instinct nurtures in him a warm and generous humanity. His faith in the future of his nation depends on the confident hope that she will be true to herself, to her traditions, to her responsibilities, to the great virtues; that she will ...
— Shakespeare and the Modern Stage - with Other Essays • Sir Sidney Lee

... perfect. But in this I have imitated their folly, brave Saracen, that in talking to thee of what thou canst not comprehend, I have, even in speaking most simple truth, fully incurred the character of a braggart in thy eyes; so, I pray you, let ...
— The Talisman • Sir Walter Scott

... dashing young man who is saved from ruin by betting on a race; another drags in a surprisingly lofty-minded damsel who grows up pure and noble amid the most repulsive surroundings; another can never forget the lost will; another depends on a mock-modest braggart who kills scores of people in a humorous way. The mould remains the same in each case, although there may be casual variations in the hue of the material poured out and moulded. All these forlorn folk are either verging toward the written-out condition or have ...
— Side Lights • James Runciman

... there, and covered with leaves, for the purpose of entrapping the beasts. It happened that the seneschal himself went into this forest, and with much exaltation of heart exclaimed internally, "Lives there a being in the empire more powerful than I am?" This braggart thought was scarcely formed, ere he rode upon one of his ...
— Mediaeval Tales • Various

... into my face which tickled me terribly; then he breathed once more into the stick, and it flew into my nose like lightning and hail; when I was quite close, he drew a white rib out of his side, and he beat me so with it that I was all but left lying dead." "See what a braggart thou art!" said the fox. "Thou throwest thy hatchet so far that thou canst not fetch ...
— Household Tales by Brothers Grimm • Grimm Brothers

... answered Thistlewood, addressing the owner of the voice, who remained invisible; 'but I wasn't speaking in a braggart way.' ...
— Bulldog And Butterfly - From "Schwartz" by David Christie Murray • David Christie Murray

... lambs; the Avelin hurried to the Gled, and beyond was the great ocean and the infinite works of man. The whole brave bustling world was astir, little and great ships hasting out of port, the soldier scaling the breach, the adventurer travelling the deserts. And he, the fool, had no share in this braggart heritage. He could not dare to look a man straight in the face, for like the king in the old fable ...
— The Half-Hearted • John Buchan

... "Keep your peace, braggart! You wish to entice us with your money. Give us half of it, or you will not fare very well here. Well, are you willing ...
— The Son of Monte-Cristo, Volume I (of 2) • Alexandre Dumas pere

... which were not carried amid the whirlwind of his first coming. There was no stopping; and before the garrisons along the line knew that Schamyl had come, he was gone; and when the Kabardians believed that the braggart who had threatened their land with plundering was shut up in his mountains six hundred wersts away, he ...
— Life of Schamyl - And Narrative of the Circassian War of Independence Against Russia • John Milton Mackie

... for Justice! . . Lo, between Him and the judgment-seat there rose The Sword of Menace, ever keen To smite the braggart War-Wolf's foes! ...
— With Zola in England • Ernest Alfred Vizetelly

... bands were masters of nearly all the wide half-empty spaces of the South Island. In one of their districts was found the famous greenstone. On no better provocation than a report which came to his ears of an insulting speech by a braggart southern chief, Rauparaha, early in 1829, manned his canoes, and sailed down the east coast to attack the boastful one's pa. The unsuspecting natives thronged down to the beach to meet the raiders ...
— The Long White Cloud • William Pember Reeves

... causes it was, could of course never be positively known, but, like a flash of lightning, the fellow changed his insolent, braggart manner to one of the most contemptible, ...
— Angel Agnes - The Heroine of the Yellow Fever Plague in Shreveport • Wesley Bradshaw

... in talking loudly in the village inn. Half in jest and half in earnest, people called him "Neale the Lord." One day he was brought home dead, killed in a drunken quarrel with Captain O'Neill, a dissolute braggart, who had struck him over the temple with a stick. His wife, my grandmother, hung a herring net across the only room of her house to hide his body from the children who slept in the ...
— The Woman Thou Gavest Me - Being the Story of Mary O'Neill • Hall Caine

... the world Sure no braggart hath like thee: Thou art not the chosen chief— Thou hast not the champion's fee:— Without action, without force, Thou art but a giggling page; Yes, thou trembler, with thy heart Like a ...
— Poems • Denis Florence MacCarthy

... out of the darkness into the light at that moment, looking burly, and insolent, and braggart, as ...
— The Uninhabited House • Mrs. J. H. Riddell

... pished and pshawed, but dared not play the braggart, for he said to himself, "That young vagabond will break in and say 'twas the finger of Heaven, and no mortal arm, or some such stuff, and make me look like a fool." But now, seeing Gerard unconscious, he suddenly ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade

... of herself Judith looked somewhat startled by the vibration of sincerity in his voice, and Sylvia, with her quick sympathy of divination, had turned almost as pale as the little boy, who, all his braggart turbulence gone, stood looking at them with a sick expression in ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield

... because the madly-wicked men Who sought to kindle flames of border war Have in confusion failed yet, once again, Their braggart plans dissolved ...
— Verses and Rhymes by the way • Nora Pembroke

... remember that we have challenged the Count; to fight him is my affair, and I have sent a challenge. Since duelling is prohibited in Lithuania, I am going to the borders of the Grand Duchy of Warsaw; the Count, of course, is a braggart, but he does not lack courage, and will appear without fail at the appointed place. We will settle accounts; and, if God grants me his blessing, I will punish him, and then will swim over the Lososna, where the ranks of my brothers await me. I have heard ...
— Pan Tadeusz • Adam Mickiewicz

... manly charms leads an Empress who in turn leads an empire. Half suspicious and wholly unconvinced, he questions and demands the exact number of invulnerables that can be placed in line; and is forthwith assured, with braggart Chinese choruses, that they are as locusts, that the whole earth swarms with them, that the movement is unconquerable. Still unconvinced, the false eunuch takes his departure, and then the Throne decrees and counter decrees in agonised Edicts. It is noticed, too, that the distributors of ...
— Indiscreet Letters From Peking • B. L. Putman Weale

... it's unendurable," he announced to the little woman opposite, with the nod of a Solomon. "It's perfectly incomprehensible, how such a girl could do it. Why, he's a braggart and a bully. He drinks in our public saloons, and handles a woman's name as he does his beer glass. The factory men say that he has boasted openly that he meant to marry Miss Lamotte, or Miss Wardour, he couldn't decide which. By the ...
— The Diamond Coterie • Lawrence L. Lynch

... with some ill-gotten gold," said Miguel, sullenly, yet with unmistakable fear of the old man. "Besides, it was only to frighten him, the braggart. But since thou fearest to touch ...
— Maruja • Bret Harte

... country would now be widely different from what it is; and surely their bishops might have been better employed in remedying the neglect of their subordinates, than in attending political meetings, and delivering postprandial orations, savouring more of the braggart boastings of a drunken drumboy, than of the deliberate opinions of a dignified ecclesiastic. In their zeal as politicians, the Roman Catholic clergy have forgotten their duties as priests; and they are now beginning to get ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 343, May 1844 • Various

... plunderers, but suits not me: Shall I, the terror of this sinful town, Care, if a liveried lord or smile or frown? Who cannot flatter, and detest who can, Tremble before a noble serving-man? O, my fair mistress, Truth! shall I quit thee For huffing, braggart, puffed nobility? Thou, who since yesterday hast rolled o'er all The busy, idle blockheads of the ball, Hast thou, oh, sun! beheld an emptier fort, Than such who swell this bladder of a Court? Now plague on those who show a Court in wax! It ought to bring all courtiers on their ...
— Essay on Man - Moral Essays and Satires • Alexander Pope

... something, and sat bolt upright in bed. Edith had once said something about knowing of a secret telephone. She had known Louis Akers very well. He might have told her what she knew, or have shown her, in some braggart moment. A certain type of man was unable to keep a secret from a woman. But that would imply—For the first time he wondered what Edith's relations with Louis Akers ...
— A Poor Wise Man • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... shy as a nun is she; One weak chirp is her only note; Braggart, and prince of braggarts is he, Pouring boasts from his little throat, Bob-o'-link, bob-o'-link, Spink, spank, spink, Never was I afraid of man, Catch me, cowardly knaves, if you ...
— Required Poems for Reading and Memorizing - Third and Fourth Grades, Prescribed by State Courses of Study • Anonymous

... as a nun is she, One weak chirp is her only note; Braggart and prince of braggarts is he, Pouring boasts from his little throat: "Bobolink, Bobolink, Spink, spank, spink, Never was I afraid of man, Catch me, cowardly knaves, if you can. Chee, ...
— McGuffey's Fifth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey

... set out from Laurel Hill, and began its tedious tramp across the fifty miles of wilderness that lay between that point and Fort Duquesne. It was headed by Major Grant, a noisy, blustering braggart, who, hankering after notoriety rather than seeking praise for duty well and faithfully done, went beyond the limits of his instructions; which were simply to find out all he could about the enemy, ...
— The Farmer Boy, and How He Became Commander-In-Chief • Morrison Heady

... to the Bridge Deck to play Shuffle-Board, the Representative of the Tightest little Island on the Map took out his Note-Book and made the following Entry: "Every Beggar living in the States is a Bounder and a Braggart." ...
— Knocking the Neighbors • George Ade

... himself, "I want me this braggart hewn to pieces, and then the rest beaten;" and added, aloud: "Ax! ax! chop! chop! and work for my profit!" Whereupon the ax leapt forward, and dealt such a blow upon Sir Paul that it pierced through his helmet, and clave him to the saddle. ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, September 1878, No. 11 • Various

... said she, 'but Those Above sent it to try if you were honest or a braggart?' After which he began to feel differently. And in due course they were married, and Ho-tai came to live in the house of the Chief Priest at Hawikuh, for her parents could not think of ...
— The Trail Book • Mary Austin et al

... South—awake—awake! And strike for rights full dear as those For which our struggling sires did shake Earth's proudest throne—while freedom rose, Baptized in blood of braggart foes. Awake—that hour hath come again! Strike! as ye look to Heaven's high throne— Strike! for the Christian patriot's crown— Strike! in the name of Washington, Who taught you once to rend the chain, Smiles now from heaven upon our cause, So like ...
— War Poetry of the South • Various

... sweeping at him with his large, bony right hand, in uncouth gestures, as if he would clutch him and shake him. He would often use invectives, which he took care should never appear printed in the official reports, and John Randolph in his braggart prime was never so imperiously insulting as was Mr. Stevens toward those whose political action he controlled. He was firm believer in the old maxim ascribed to the Jesuits, "The end justifies the ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore

... eyes, He held his life, his fortunes, everything, In sacred trust for knighthood and his king, And in the battle-field or tilting-yard He met his foe full-fronted, and struck hard. But now it seemed a foolish thing to throw One's whole life to the fortune of a blow. True valor breathes not in the braggart vaunt; True honor takes no shame from idle taunt; So let this wizard, if he wants to, scoff; Why should our hero have ...
— Gawayne And The Green Knight - A Fairy Tale • Charlton Miner Lewis

... I cannot understand, for, as a rule, if a person does not push himself right ahead, he does not get there. Modesty may be all right, but, in most cases, the modest fellow gets left. Not that I believe in the braggart and blowhard, but a chap must have nerve to put himself ahead if he wants to keep in the game. I have seen lots of inferior individuals get a start on those with ability simply because they had the gall to sail right in and make their bluff. I believe there are two kinds ...
— Frank Merriwell's Bravery • Burt L. Standish

... has since occurred, you will be surprised to hear that I really had no fear of the machinations of Reardon. I knew him to be a great braggart, as I had said; and his threats against those who offended him were a standing jest in the village, for they had never in any instance been fulfilled. My taunt perhaps stung him into the accomplishment of his words to me; or ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 3, July, 1851 • Various

... tame; No mark of sense, his eyes half-closed, He on a mighty dray-horse dozed: Fate never could a horse provide So fit for such a man to ride, Nor find a man with strictest care, So fit for such a horse to bear. Hung round with instruments of death, The sight of him would stop the breath 1590 Of braggart Cowardice, and make The very court Drawcansir[270] quake; With dirks, which, in the hands of Spite, Do their damn'd business in the night, From Scotland sent, but here display'd Only to fill up the parade; With swords, unflesh'd, of maiden hue, Which rage ...
— Poetical Works • Charles Churchill

... Lancelot, "Ill do you, and a sin, to conjure me for nought, for so many good knights be here within, that I should be held for a fool and a braggart and I put myself ...
— High History of the Holy Graal • Unknown



Words linked to "Braggart" :   egotist, crowing, braggy, swellhead, boaster, big, self-aggrandizing, egoist, bragging, blowhard, line-shooter



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