bombast

noun

bom·​bast ˈbäm-ˌbast 

: pretentious inflated speech or writing

political bombast

Did you know?

Bombast settled softly into English in the mid-late 16th century as a textile term used to refer to cotton or other soft fibrous material used as padding or stuffing (its ultimate source is likely Middle Persian pambak, meaning “cotton”), but within a decade it had extended from literal stuffing to figurative stuffing, referring to speech or writing that is padded with pretentious verbiage. The adjective bombastic, which followed bombast a century later, has been a favorite choice to describe blowhards, boasters, and cockalorums ever since.

Synonyms

• bluster
• brag
• braggadocio
• bull [slang]
• cockalorum
• fanfaronade
• gas
• gasconade
• grandiloquence
• hot air
• magniloquence
• rant
• rodomontade
• rhodomontade

Examples of bombast in a Sentence

the other world leaders at the international conference had little interest in being subjected to the president's bombast

you need less bombast and more substance in this speech on human rights

Recent Examples on the Web

Dmitri Shostakovich’s Fifth Symphony, one of the mainstays of the twentieth-century orchestral repertory, ends with an unapologetic display of musical bombast. —Alex Ross, The New Yorker, 21 Nov. 2024

Despite bombast and threats, Mike Pompeo’s lobbying efforts in Europe against Huawei met with only mixed success. —Garrett M. Graff, WIRED, 16 Jan. 2020

Photo: Everett Collection / Everett Collection Sleight gets extra points for being an unexpected indie genre picture amid so much scary bombast. —Jordan Crucchiola, Vulture, 12 Oct. 2024

Though Gotham stories are always primed for whimsical plot twists, there’s a matter-of-fact quality to Folie à Deux that is likely going to come as a disappointment to fans expecting theatrical bombast. —Charles Pulliam-Moore, The Verge, 4 Oct. 2024

Word History

Etymology

earlier, "cotton or other material used as padding or stuffing," extension (with parasitic t) of bombace, bombage, going back to Middle English bombace, borrowed from Anglo-French bombés, bombace, borrowed from Medieval Latin bambac-, bambax, bombax (also banbax, bonbax) "cotton plant, cotton fiber or wadding," borrowed from Middle Greek bámbax, pámbax, going back to a Greek stem pambak- (as in pambakís "item of clothing, probably of cotton"), probably borrowed from Middle Persian pambak "cotton" (or from an unknown source from which both words were borrowed)

Note: At virtually all stages of this etymon's history there has been formal and semantic confusion with Latin bombyx "silk" and its congeners (hence the o in the English, French, and Latin forms; see note at bombazine), though the two words are very likely of distinct origin. The earliest European occurrence of the "cotton" word is pambakís, denoting an item of apparel in an epigram attributed to Myrinus (1st century b.c.e. or earlier) in the Palatine Anthology (VI, 254). In some manuscripts of Dioscorides' treatise on materia medica (1st century c.e.) bambakoeidḗs "cotton-like" is used in the description of a plant (other witnesses give bombykoeidḗs "silklike"). Greek bámbax and pámbax, as well as a derivative, bambákion, are attested in the 10th-century Byzantine encyclopedia Suda/Souda, which cites the epigram by Myrinus (see Suda On Line at www.stoa.org/sol/). The Medieval Latin forms are well attested in texts of the Salerno medical school, as the Tractatus de aegritudinum curatione, part of the now lost Breslau Codex Salernitanus (ca. 1200); see citations under bombyx, sense 2, in the Mittellateinisches Wörterbuch.

First Known Use

1583, in the meaning defined above

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Kids Definition

bombast

noun

bom·​bast ˈbäm-ˌbast 

: boastful speech or writing

bombastic

bäm-ˈbas-tik

adjective

bombastically

-ti-k(ə-)lē

adverb