boast vs kowtow

boast

noun
  • A shot where the ball is driven off a side wall and then strikes the front wall. 

  • A brag; ostentatious positive appraisal of oneself. 

  • Something that one brags about. 

verb
  • To speak of with pride, vanity, or exultation, with a view to self-commendation; to extol. 

  • To play a boast shot. 

  • To dress, as a stone, with a broad chisel. 

  • To brag; to talk loudly in praise of oneself. 

  • To possess something special (e.g. as a feature). 

  • To shape roughly as a preparation for the finer work to follow; to cut to the general form required. 

kowtow

verb
  • To bow very deeply. 

  • To grovel, act in a very submissive manner. 

  • To bow to or show obeisance to. 

  • To kneel and bow low enough to touch one’s forehead to the ground. 

noun
  • The act of kowtowing. 

How often have the words boast and kowtow occurred in a corpus of books? (source: Google Ngram Viewer )