braggadocio

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

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

braggadocio (countable and uncountable, plural braggadocios or braggadocii)

1. A 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.
   • 1848, William Makepeace Thackeray, Vanity Fair, Chapter 6:

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

• For quotations of use of this term, see Citations:braggadocio.

• (braggart): blowhard
• (empty boasting): big talk

• braggadocious

• machismo