vaunt

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /vɔːnt/
• Rhymes: -ɔːnt
• (some accents) IPA^(key): /vɑːnt/
• Rhymes: -ɑːnt
• (US) IPA^(key): /vɔnt/
• (cot–caught merger) IPA^(key): /vɑnt/

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

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?) John Milton

     My vanquisher, spoiled of his vaunted spoil.

• (speak boastfully): boast, brag

• vaunter

vaunt (plural vaunts)

1. A boast; an instance of vaunting.
   • (Can we date this quote?) John Milton

     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.

French avant (“before, fore”). See avant, vanguard.

vaunt (plural vaunts)

1. (obsolete) The first part.

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

• Tuvan