Chesty

Part of speech: adjective

Pronunciation: /ˈt͡ʃɛsti/

Definitions

1. Describing someone or something with a notably large or prominent chest area ; showing pride or arrogance through boastful or self-important behavior
2. Having a conspicuous or well-developed chest ; behaving in a way that displays pride, confidence, or swagger
3. Characterized by a broad or striking chest ; exhibiting an attitude of self-assurance or bragging

Etymology: "Chesty" is about as plain as English etymology gets: it is simply "chest" plus the adjective-forming suffix "-y", meaning "having the qualities of" or "full of". The suffix descends from Old English "-ig", which also gave us words like "stony" and "milky", so a chesty person is, literally, one with a chest-like quality about them. The two senses have quite different histories in practice. The physical sense, a broad or prominent chest, follows the plain logic of the suffix. The sense of swaggering self-assurance or bragging is a figurative extension built on that same image, as if the chest were puffed out in pride. The word's ancestry runs back through Old English "cest" and the Germanic forms of "chest" to a common root meaning a box or container, which is the older source of the body-part meaning too.

Synonyms: proud, arrogant, boastful, conceited, vainglorious

Antonyms: humble, modest, unassuming