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Bombast
Definitions
- 1 Big without meaning, or high-sounding; bombastic, inflated; magniloquent.
"But he (as louing his owne pride, and purpoſes) / Euades them, with a bumbaſt Circumſtance, / Horribly ſtufft with Epithites of warre, / Non-ſuites my Mediators."
- 1 Cotton, or cotton wool. archaic, countable, uncountable
"SURBATING; a Diſtemper in a Horſe, who is ſaid to be ſurbated, when the Sole is worn, bruiſed or ſpoiled by travelling without Shoes, or with ill ſhoeing: [...] take Frankincenſe, and rolling it in a little fine Cotton Wool or Bombaſt, with a hot Iron melt it into the Foot betwixt the Shoe and the Toe, until the Orifice, where the Blood was taken away, is fill'd up; [...]"
- 2 pompous or pretentious talk or writing wordnet
- 3 Cotton, or any soft, fibrous material, used as stuffing for garments; stuffing, padding. archaic, countable, uncountable
"[C]ertayne I am there was neuer any kinde of apparell euer inuented, that could more diſproportion the body of man, then theſe Dublettes with great bellies hanging downe beneath their Pudenda, (as I haue ſayd) & ſtuffed with foure, fiue, or ſixe pound of Bombaſt at the least: [...]"
- 4 High-sounding words; language above the dignity of the occasion; a pompous or ostentatious manner of writing or speaking. countable, figuratively, uncountable
"Bombaſt and Buffoonry, by Nature lofty and light, ſoar higheſt of all, [...]"
- 1 To swell or fill out; to inflate, to pad.
"Their doctrine is to be seen in Jacob Behmen's books by him that hath nothing else to do, than to bestow a great deal of time to understand him that was not willing to be easily understood, and to know that his bombasted words do signify nothing more than before was easily known by common familiar terms."
- 2 To use high-sounding words; to speak or write in a pompous or ostentatious manner.
"[']The ugly truth is, Gerald,' she said viciously, 'that you're a phoney, a rotten, bombasting phoney, trying to cover up from all the world,[…][']"
Etymology
From Old French bombace (“cotton, cotton wadding”), from Late Latin bombax (“cotton”), a variant of bombyx (“silkworm”), from Ancient Greek βόμβυξ (bómbux, “silkworm”), possibly related to Middle Persian pmbk' (“cotton”), from a Proto-Indo-European root meaning “to twist, wind”.
From Old French bombace (“cotton, cotton wadding”), from Late Latin bombax (“cotton”), a variant of bombyx (“silkworm”), from Ancient Greek βόμβυξ (bómbux, “silkworm”), possibly related to Middle Persian pmbk' (“cotton”), from a Proto-Indo-European root meaning “to twist, wind”.
From Old French bombace (“cotton, cotton wadding”), from Late Latin bombax (“cotton”), a variant of bombyx (“silkworm”), from Ancient Greek βόμβυξ (bómbux, “silkworm”), possibly related to Middle Persian pmbk' (“cotton”), from a Proto-Indo-European root meaning “to twist, wind”.
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