outbrave

that intrude themselves to our ears as the alchemists of eloquence, who (mounted on the stage of arrogance) think to outbrave better pens with the swelling bombast of a bragging blank verse." George Puttenham, The Arte of English Poesie (1589), censures innovations while admitting that he has imported "many straunge and unaccustomed wordes"; modern version ed.

He may be 'brave' but he does not outbrave those below him; taken for all in all he is a man.

As the play opens, Amurath hyperbolically declares his complete abandonment to the passion of lust: 'Jove Ile outbrave thee!

Sir Tophas kills 'by the dozen' (End 1.3.68-9), for Ralph to kill forty 'is a matter of laughter' (Ralph 4.7.77), and Pyrgopolinices slays 'Sev'n thousand' in a day (Brag 1.1.43-7); but Petruchio outbraves them all, vowing to 'buckler' Katherina 'against a million!' (The Shrew 3.2.228).

Still, the muscle is there in the classics, we reread them with joy, and in a sense wherever a man has really worked his stuff outbraves time and novel methods.