Crossword clues for bombast
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Bombast \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.
Bombast \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.
Bombast \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.]
-
Originally, cotton, or cotton wool. [Obs.]
A candle with a wick of bombast.
--Lupton. -
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. -
Fig.: High-sounding words; an inflated style; language above the dignity of the occasion; fustian.
Yet noisy bombast carefully avoid.
--Dryden.
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
1560s, "cotton padding," corrupted from earlier bombace (1550s), from Old French bombace "cotton, cotton wadding," from Late Latin bombacem, accusative of bombax "cotton, 'linteorum aut aliae quaevis quisquiliae,' " a corruption and transferred use of Latin bombyx "silk," from Greek bombyx "silk, silkworm" (which also came to mean "cotton" in Medieval Greek), from some oriental word, perhaps related to Iranian pambak (modern panba) or Armenian bambok, perhaps ultimately from a PIE root meaning "to twist, wind." From stuffing and padding for clothes or upholstery, meaning extended to "pompous, empty speech" (1580s).\n
\nAlso from the same source are Swedish bomull, Danish bomuld "cotton," and, via Turkish forms, Modern Greek mpampaki, Rumanian bumbac, Serbo-Croatian pamuk. German baumwolle "cotton" is probably from the Latin word but altered by folk-etymology to look like "tree wool." Polish bawełna, Lithuanian bovelna are partial translations from German.
Wiktionary
High-sounding; inflated; big without meaning; magniloquent; bombastic. n. 1 Originally, cotton, or cotton wool. 2 Cotton, or any soft, fibrous material, used as stuffing for garments; stuffing; padding. 3 (context figuratively English) high-sounding words; a pompous or ostentatious manner of writing or speaking; language above the dignity of the occasion. v
To swell or fill out; to pad; to inflate.
WordNet
Usage examples of "bombast".
Ortaias Sphrantzes, a foolish, trivial young man with more bombast than sense, was only a pawn in the hands of his uncle Vardanes.
I am utterly sick and tired of the eternal brag and bombast around me.
The credulity of the Parisians, and their love of high-flown bombast, amount to a disease, which, if this city is not to sink into a species of Baden Baden, must be stamped out.
The journals of all colours, with only one or two exceptions, are filled with lies and bombast, and the people believe the one and admire the other.
General Vinoy has to-day issued a proclamation to the troops, which in its plain, simple, modest language contrasts very favourably with the inflated bombast in which his predecessor was so great an adept.
English bombast of Shakespearean times, with its implication that a few Englishmen are a match for large numbers of French.
Greek philosophy which taught, clearly and without bombast, the ascent from the cave and the gradual advance of souls to a truer and truer vision.
Authentic Existences but their simulacra--there is nothing here but a jargon invented to make a case for their school: all this terminology is piled up only to conceal their debt to the ancient Greek philosophy which taught, clearly and without bombast, the ascent from the cave and the gradual advance of souls to a truer and truer vision.
Not eastern bombast, nor the savage rant Of purpled madmen, were they numbered all From Roman Nero, down to Russian Paul, Could grate upon my ear so mean, so base, As the rank jargon of that factious race, Who, poor of heart, and prodigal of words, Born to be slaves, and struggling to be lords, But pant for licence, while they spurn controul, And shout for rights, with rapine in their soul!
Where the weakest are to be convinced speech must stoop: a full consideration of the velleities and uncertainties, a little bombast to elevate the feelings without committing the judgment, some vague effusion of sentiment, an inapposite blandness, a meaningless rodomontade - these are the by-ways to be travelled by the style that is a willing slave to its audience.
The old bombast was probably up to his protruding ears, by now, in lawsuits on behalf of half of the probies in Tijuana.
I had one great mark at which to aim in the course of my travels, since I had a desire to see the birthplace of that master of wisdom, Philippus Aureolus Theophrastus Bombast, known by the name of Paracelsus.
The boasting bombast which had been so largely indulged in previous to the Raid of 1866 was not manifested on this occasion, consequently little interest was taken by the general public in Fenian affairs.
It was all bombast, froth and bubble, or rather a gentle back-hander, for the cyclone was playing all sorts of naughty pranks elsewhere.
Still, their minds — as fleeting as their tempers — were quick to light upon a new subject for their bombasts.