bombast, fustian, rant, claptrap, blah
(noun) pompous or pretentious talk or writing
Source: WordNet® 3.1
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.
• (cotton or cotton wool): fustian
• (high-sounding words): aureation, bombard phrase (obsolete), fustian, grandiloquence, purple prose
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.
bombast (comparative more bombast, superlative most bombast)
Big without meaning, or high-sounding; bombastic, inflated; magniloquent.
• 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
2 April 2025
(adjective) secret or hidden; not openly practiced or engaged in or shown or avowed; “covert actions by the CIA”; “covert funding for the rebels”
Contrary to popular belief, coffee beans are not technically beans. They are referred to as such because of their resemblance to legumes. A coffee bean is a seed of the Coffea plant and the source for coffee. It is the pit inside the red or purple fruit, often referred to as a cherry. Just like ordinary cherries, the coffee fruit is also a so-called stone fruit.
