bumptious
adjective
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How Should You Use bumptious?
While we've uncovered evidence dating bumptious to the beginning of the 19th century, the word was uncommon enough decades later that Edward Bulwer-Lytton included the following in his 1850 My Novel: "'She holds her head higher, I think,' said the landlord, smiling. 'She was always—not exactly proud like, but what I calls Bumptious.' 'I never heard that word before,' said the parson, laying down his knife and fork. 'Bumptious indeed, though I believe it is not in the dictionary, has crept into familiar parlance, especially amongst young folks at school and college.'" The word is, of course, now in "the dictionary"; ours notes that it comes from the noun bump and the -tious of fractious.
Synonyms
- arrogant
- assumptive
- cavalier
- chesty
- haughty
- high-and-mighty
- high-handed
- high-hat
- highfalutin
- hifalutin
- huffish
- huffy
- imperious
- important
- lofty
- lordly
- masterful
- overweening
- peremptory
- pompous
- presuming
- presumptuous
- pretentious
- self-asserting
- self-assertive
- sniffy
- stiff-necked
- supercilious
- superior
- toplofty
- toploftical
- uppish
- uppity
Examples of bumptious in a Sentence
Guy Martin, Forbes, 30 Mar. 2024
The story is a familiar one — a young immigrant fetches up in New York to seek his fortune, only to be buffeted by a bumptious city and cut to the quick by its competitive edge — but Torres reshapes it into something simultaneously more fantastical and far more real.
—Ann Hornaday, Washington Post, 13 Mar. 2024
Democratic governments should defend their policies before a public free to express itself, even in bumptious and offensive terms.
—Daniel Foster, National Review, 30 Nov. 2023
Democratic governments need to defend their policies in public, with a public that is free to express itself, even in terms that are bumptious and offensive.
—The Editors, National Review, 29 Nov. 2023
So, to the loud and bumptious anti-Biden chorus that blames him for everything bad, there is no equally loud and bumptious pro-Biden answering chorus speaking as one and giving him credit for everything good.
—Michael Tomasky, The New Republic, 18 Sep. 2023
Bailey is suitably bumptious but effortful as Harry, but the drama suffers most with the underwritten and over-emoting Holly and Anna.
—David Benedict, Variety, 20 June 2023
These dragons are not awaiting a human slayer, a bumptious avatar of St. George.
—Aatish Taseer, New York Times, 16 Feb. 2023
The soaring office walls, stripped of Young’s bumptious archaeology (including his vertical herd of taxidermy), had been repainted in the dull buttercream of Capitol Hill bureaucracy.
—Dan Zak, Anchorage Daily News, 17 Sep. 2022
These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'bumptious.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.
Dictionary Entries Near bumptious
Cite this Entry
“Bumptious.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/bumptious. Accessed 19 Apr. 2024.
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