Proud is the warm feeling you get when someone close to you does well, or when you have done something hard yourself. A parent clapping too loudly at a school play. You, standing back and looking at a shelf you built and half expected to fall down.
It takes OF for the thing or person: proud of his daughter, proud of the work, proud of where she came from. It takes TO with a verb: proud to be here, proud to introduce her. The other side of the word is far less warm. A proud man can be one who thinks too much of himself, and someone too proud to ask for help or too proud to take the money is being stubborn, not pleased. The noun is pride and the adverb is proudly. In Britain, house-proud describes a person who keeps their home spotless and minds if you notice.
1adjectiveproudFeeling pleased and satisfied about something you or someone close to you has done.~69%
“Her parents were so proud they told everyone in the street.”
synonyms: pleased, gratified
2adjectivearrogantHaving too high an opinion of your own importance.~27%
“He was a proud man who never once said he was sorry.”
3adjectiveenoughHaving enough self-respect to refuse help, pity or charity.~2%
“She was too proud to admit she could not pay the rent.”
4adjectiveoccasionOf an occasion: giving people a reason to feel pride.~2%
“It was a proud day for the whole village.”
Shares are an estimate: a language model read 7 sentences found in the wild and placed 7 of them on a sense — a count of our sample, not a measurement of English.
Proud is one of those words that starts out rude. Old English prūd meant arrogant and haughty, and it probably came from Old French prod, brave and gallant, which traces back to Latin prode, useful, from prosum, to be of value. The Old English forms behind pride hint the word may be older in English than the borrowing suggests. Either way, the flattering sense we use for parents came long after the insult.
Latin
prode — useful
Old French
prod
Old English
prūd
Middle English
proud
English, today
proud
Built from
From Middle English proud, prout, prut, from Old English prūd, prūt (“proud, arrogant, haughty”) (compare Old English prȳtung (“pride”); prȳde, prȳte (“pride”), see also deal), probably from Old French prod, prut (“brave, gallant”) (modern French preux), from Latin prode (“useful”), derived from Latin prosum (“to be of value”); however, the Old English umlaut derivatives prȳte, prȳtian, etc. suggest the word may be older and possibly native. Compare Old Norse prýði (“ornament; gallantry, bravery”). See also pride. Cognate with German Low German praud, Old Norse prúðr (“gallant, brave, magnificent, stately, handsome, fine”) (Icelandic prúður, Middle Swedish prudh, Danish prud).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA