Dictionary Definition

gasconade n : an instance of boastful talk; "his brag is worse than his fight"; "whenever he won we were exposed to his gasconade" [syn: brag, bragging, crow, crowing, vaporing, line-shooting] v : show off [syn: boast, tout, swash, shoot a line, brag, gas, blow, bluster, vaunt]

User Contributed Dictionary

Possibly from 18th-century slang "Gascon" (a braggart).

obsolete derogatory Boastful talk.
- 1782, W. Cunningham Mallory, translation of Confessions by Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Book III http://etext.library.adelaide.edu.au/r/rousseau/jean_jacques/r864c/book3.html:
"This Gasconade surprised Le Maitre — 'You'll see,' said he, whispering to me, 'that he does not know a single note.'"
- 1881, Robert Louis Stevenson, Virginibus Puerisque Chapter III:
"Just now... a cry from the opposite party who are content when they have enough, and like to look on and enjoy in the meanwhile, savours a little of bravado and gasconade."

obsolete derogatory To talk boastfully.
- 1817, review of "Wilks's Historical Sketches of the South of India," in The Quarterly Review http://books.google.com/books?id=EsZK0EUNHc0C, page 57:
"The Frenchman, not being able to bring the precise number, received only, as the first month's pay, 2,000 rupees. He demanded an audience, talked loud, and gasconaded."
- 1847, Dorothy (Wordsworth) Quillinan, Journal of a Few Months Residence in Portugal and Glimpses of the South of Spain http://books.google.com/books?id=4ps2AAAAMAAJ, page 246:
"...he gasconaded on the theme of his personal exploits in the Seven Years' War of France in Spain, as if he had been as prime a sword-player as Murat..."

Seldom used after the late 19th century. Appears overwhelmingly in references to the French.