BOMBAST

bombast, fustian, rant, claptrap, blah

(noun) pompous or pretentious talk or writing

Source: WordNet® 3.1

---

Etymology

Noun

bombast (countable and uncountable, plural bombasts)

(archaic) Cotton, or cotton wool.

(archaic) Cotton, or any soft, fibrous material, used as stuffing for garments; stuffing, padding.

(figuratively) High-sounding words; language above the dignity of the occasion; a pompous or ostentatious manner of writing or speaking.

Synonyms

• (cotton or cotton wool): fustian

• (high-sounding words): aureation, bombard phrase (obsolete), fustian, grandiloquence, purple prose

Verb

bombast (third-person singular simple present bombasts, present participle bombasting, simple past and past participle bombasted)

To swell or fill out; to inflate, to pad.

To use high-sounding words; to speak or write in a pompous or ostentatious manner.

Adjective

bombast (comparative more bombast, superlative most bombast)

Big without meaning, or high-sounding; bombastic, inflated; magniloquent.

Synonyms

• aureate

• highfalutin

Source: Wiktionary

---

Bom"bast, n. Etym: [OF. bombace cotton, LL. bombax cotton, bombasium a doublet of cotton; hence, padding, wadding, fustian. See Bombazine.]

1. Originally, cotton, or cotton wool. [Obs.] A candle with a wick of bombast. Lupton.

2. Cotton, or any soft, fibrous material, used as stuffing for garments; stuffing; padding. [Obs.] How now, my sweet creature of bombast! Shak. Doublets, stuffed with four, five, or six pounds of bombast at least. Stubbes.

3. Fig.: High-sounding words; an inflated style; language above the dignity of the occasion; fustian. Yet noisy bombast carefully avoid. Dryden.

Bom"bast, a.

Definition: High-sounding; inflated; big without meaning; magniloquent; bombastic. [He] evades them with a bombast circumstance, Horribly stuffed with epithets of war. Shak. Nor a tall metaphor in bombast way. Cowley.

Bom*bast", v. t.

Definition: To swell or fill out; to pad; to inflate. [Obs.] Not bombasted with words vain ticklish ears to feed. Drayton.

Source: Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary 1913 Edition

---