fanfaront (fanfaron)

[F. fanfaron = It. fan far one, a boaster, braggart, adj. boastful, bragging, Virgil makes Æneas a bold avower of his owne virtues: Sum pius Æneas famå super æthera not us: which, in the civility of our poets, is the character of a fanfaron or Hector. Dryden, E ay on Dram. Poesy. 2. Noisy or boastful parade; ostentation; fanfare. To Sir G. Carteret; and, among other things, he told me that he was not for the fan faro one , to make a show with a great title, as he might have had long since, but the main thing to get an estate. Pepys, Diary, Aug. 14, 1665. fanfaronade (fan-far-ō-nad'), n . [F. fanfa ronnade = It. fanfaron at a , fan far ron ada , name, ikan zayer. fanfoot (fan'fut), n.; pl. fanfoots or fanfeet (-füts, -fēt). 1. A name of the gecko-lizards, from their spreading toes. A common species to which the term is applied is the North African Ptyodactylus gecko, a perfectly harmle animal, so much dreaded for its reputed venomous properties that it is called at Cairo abou - burs, father of leprosy. As in other geckos, the spreading toes end in a disk or sucker which enables the animal to adhere to perpendicular surfaces; the claws are retractile, and a fluid, the supposed poison, exudes from the toes, whence the name Ptyodactylus, or spit-toe. See cut under gecko. 2. In entom., a collectors' name of a moth of the genus Polypogon.