bombast
Plural: bombasts
Noun
- Pompous or extravagant language, especially to impress.
- pompous or pretentious talk or writing
- Cotton, or cotton wool.
- Cotton, or any soft, fibrous material, used as stuffing for garments; stuffing, padding.
- High-sounding words; language above the dignity of the occasion; a pompous or ostentatious manner of writing or speaking.
Verb
- To swell or fill out; to inflate, to pad.
- To use high-sounding words; to speak or write in a pompous or ostentatious manner.
Adj
- Big without meaning, or high-sounding; bombastic, inflated; magniloquent.
Examples
- His explanation of his complex Scrabble strategy was pure bombast; he just got lucky.
Origin / 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”.
Synonyms
blah, claptrap, fustian, rant, aureate, aureation, bombard phrase, grandiloquence, highfalutin, purple prose
Scrabble Score: 13
bombast: valid Scrabble (US) TWL Wordbombast: valid Scrabble Word in Merriam-Webster MW Dictionary
bombast: valid Scrabble Word in International Collins CSW Dictionary