Bombast Definition

Pompous or overblown language.

Bombast Poem Example

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[n] pompous or pretentious talk or writing

Synonyms

blah, claptrap, fustian, rant

See Also...

grandiloquence, grandiosity, magniloquence, rhetoric

Related Terms

absurdity, amphigory, babble, babblement, balderdash, bibble-babble, blabber, blather, bluster, boast, boastfulness, boasting, bombastry, brag, braggadocio, braggartism, bragging, bravado, claptrap, conceit, double-talk, drivel, drool, fanfaronade, fiddle

Misc. Definitions

\Bom"bast\ (b[o^]m"b[.a]st or b[u^]m"b[.a]st; 277), n. [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. 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"\ (b[o^]m*b[.a]st" or b[u^]m*b[.a]st"), v. t. To swell or fill out; to pad; to inflate. [Obs.] Not bombasted with words vain ticklish ears to feed. --Drayton.