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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
Examples of bombast in a Sentence
These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'bombast.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.
Word History
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.
1583, in the meaning defined above
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“Bombast.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/bombast. Accessed 6 Oct. 2024.
Kids Definition
bombast
nounMore from Merriam-Webster on bombast
Nglish: Translation of bombast for Spanish Speakers
Britannica English: Translation of bombast for Arabic Speakers
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