Gasconade

Word of the Day for Thursday, January 5, 2012

gasconade \gas-kuh-NEYD\, noun:

1. Extravagant boasting; boastful talk.

verb:
1. To boast extravagantly; bluster.

The British officers laugh, because they are well armed and many, and Kemal's men are pitifully few, but they enjoy and admire Kemal's swashbuckling gasconade, and they let his party pass.
-- Louis de Bernières, Birds Without Wings

The papers, barely days old, were full of boastful malarkey and gasconade, but of much more evident value when it came to information about the state of things in France, and in the local area.
-- Dewey Lambdin, Troubled Waters

Gasconade originally referred to people who were from the Gascony region of southwest France, bordering Spain. Gascons reputedly boast and exaggerate their success, and their toponym took on a life of its own. It became common in English in the early 1700s.

With thanks to: http://www.dictionary.com/