- Feeling pleasurable satisfaction over an act, possession, quality, or relationship by which one measures one's stature or self-worth: proud of one's child; proud to serve one's country.
- Occasioning or being a reason for pride: “On January 1, 1900, Americans and Europeans greeted the twentieth century in the proud and certain belief that the next hundred years would make all things possible” (W. Bruce Lincoln).
- Feeling or showing justifiable self-respect.
- Filled with or showing excessive self-esteem.
- Of great dignity; honored: a proud name.
- Majestic; magnificent: proud alpine peaks.
- Spirited. Used of an animal: proud steeds.
[Middle English, from Old English prūd, from Old French prou, prud, brave, virtuous, oblique case of prouz, from Vulgar Latin *prōdis, from Late Latin prōde, advantageous, from Latin prōdesse, to be good : prōd-, for (variant of prō-, with d on the model of red-, prevocalic variant of re-, back, again; see pro–1) + esse, to be.]
proudly proud'ly adv.proudness proud'ness n.
SYNONYMS proud, arrogant, haughty, disdainful, supercilious. These adjectives mean characterized by an inflated ego and disdain for what one considers inferior: Proud can suggest justifiable self-satisfaction but often implies conceit: “There is such a thing as a man being too proud to fight” (Woodrow Wilson). One who is arrogant is overbearingly proud and demands excessive power or consideration: an arrogant and pompous professor, unpopular with students and colleagues alike. Haughty suggests proud superiority, as by reason of high status: “Her laugh was satirical, and so was the habitual expression of her arched and haughty lip” (Charlotte Brontë). Disdainful emphasizes scorn or contempt: “Nor [let] grandeur hear with a disdainful smile,/The short and simple annals of the poor” (Thomas Gray). Supercilious implies haughty disdain and aloofness: “His mother eyed me in silence with a supercilious air” (Tobias Smollett).
