Now rhet. or arch. Also 5–6 vaunte, 6–7 vant. [Aphetic f. AVAUNT sb.1 Cf. VAUNT v.]
1. Boasting, bragging; boastful or vainglorious language or utterance; arrogant assertion or bearing.
a. 1400–50. Alexander, 1880. Bot þof þou þe victor a-vaile na vaunte sall arise.
14[?]. Sir Beues (S.), 3963 + 87. Kyng Yuor swoor with grete vaunt Be hys god Tirmegaunt.
1500–20. Dunbar, Poems, xiv. 41. Sic vant of wostouris with hairtis in sinfull staturis.
1577. B. Googe, Heresbach’s Husb., I. (1586), 4. For my part (without vaunt be it spoken,) I haue seruice euery day at certaine appointed houres.
1596. Spenser, F. Q., VI. iv. 29. A great Gyant … Whom he did ouerthrow … And in three battailes did so deadly daunt, That he dare not returne for all his daily vaunt.
1838. Prescott, Ferd. & Is., II. i. (1846), II. 256. With all the vaunt and insolent port of a conqueror.
personified. a. 1510. Douglas, K. Hart, II. 523. To Vant and Voky ȝe beir this rowm slef.
transf. 1553. T. Wilson, Rhet. (1580), 14. [Certain orators] would so muche saie as their witte would giue, not weighyng the state of the cause, but mindyng the vaunt of their braine.
2. To make (one’s or a) vaunt, to boast or brag. Also const. of something. Now rare.
(a) 1530. Palsgr., 619/2. He made his vaunte that he wolde beate me.
1555. Eden, Decades (Arb.), 147. The christians … whom thou haste … threated to drawe by the heare of their heades to the nexte ryuer,… as thou haste often tymes made thy vaunte emonge thy naked slaues.
1573. G. Harvey, Letter-bk. (Camden), 5. [I] am an inch beneath him, as he ons made his vaunt.
(b) a. 1533. Ld. Berners, Huon, lii. 177. Make no vaunt of ony thynge without thou canst do it in dede, for in euery thynge I wyll proue thee.
1548. Udall, Erasm. Par. Luke, 51. Many make vauntes and crakes of hauing visions of Aungels, whiche they yet neuer sawe.
1687. Miége, Gt. Fr. Dict., II. s.v., To make a vaunt of a Thing, to boast of it.
(c) 1586. G. Whitney, Embl., 228. Then, let him not make vaunt of his desert.
1860. Motley, Netherl., iv. (1868), I. 114. He stoutly denied the facts of which the leaguers made vaunt.
3. A boasting assertion, speech or statement; a boast or brag.
1597. Deloney, Gentle Craft, Wks. (1912), 186. Tom Drums vants, and his rare intertainment at Mistris Fariners house.
1625. Bacon, Ess., Vain-Glory (Arb.), 463. They that are Glorious, must needs be Factious…. They must needs be Violent, to make good their owne Vaunts.
1667. Milton, P. L., IV. 84. The spirits beneath, whom I seduc’d With other promises and other vaunts Then to submit, boasting I could subdue Th’ Omnipotent.
1694. Dryden, Love Tri., I. i. The haughty Captive, who had made his Vaunts To lay their Dwellings level.
1716. Pope, Iliad, V. 580. Now, now thy country calls her wonted friends, And the proud vaunt in just derision ends.
a. 1735. G. Granville, Unnat. Flights Poetry, 51. Such vaunts as his who can with patience read?
1798. Coleridge, Fears in Solitude, 198. May the vaunts And menace of the vengeful enemy Pass like the gust.
1818. Hallam, Mid. Ages, ix. II. (1819), III. 375. A writer of the thirteenth [century] asserts that all the world was clothed from English wool wrought in Flanders. This indeed is an exaggerated vaunt.
1855. Prescott, Philip II., I. i. Spain then first realized the magnificent vaunt,… that the sun never set within the borders of her dominions.
1882. Farrar, Early Chr., II. 58. For a man to boast of wisdom when his heart is full of bitter emulation and party spirit is a lying vaunt.
b. Const. of.
1565. Jewel, Reply Harding (1611), 73. But that the same humanitie of Christ is in the Sacrament, in such grosse sort, as is supposed by our Aduersaries, notwithstanding many bold vants thereof made, yet was it hitherto neuer prooued.
1589. Greene, Menaphon (Arb.), 73. Telling her how he was a King,… what power he had to aduance her, with many other proude vaunts of his wealth.
1593. Shaks., 2 Hen. VI., III. i. 50. [He] by reputing of his high discent … And such high vaunts of his Nobilitie, Did [etc.].
1654. Gataker, Disc. Apol., 80. Of which his vain pretension, and his freqent vaunts thereof being by letters minded and admonished, he returns this Answer.
1778. Bp. Lowth, Transl. Isaiah, Notes (ed. 12), 217. They introduce him as uttering the most extravagant vaunts of his power and ambitious designs.
1826. Scott, Rev. Kemble’s Life, Biogr. (1849), 200. Assassins [were] approaching him … in the very midst of his triumphant vaunt of his repeated victories.
† c. (See quot. and cf. BRAG sb.1 6.) Obs.–0
1598. Florio, Chiesta,… a vaunt or vye in gaming.
4. A cause or subject of boasting. rare.
1791. Cowper, Iliad, II. 188. Is it thus at last That the Achaians … Shall seek again their country, leaving here, To be the vaunt of Ilium and her King, Helen of Argos?
