Word of the Day

: February 22, 2016

bumptious

adjective BUMP-shus

What It Means

: presumptuously, obtusely, and often noisily self-assertive : obtrusive

bumptious in Context

The talk show often features interesting guests, but the bumptious host's tendency to turn the interview back to himself can get annoying.

"He had a sense of himself that was strong; that’s why he was successful as an actor. But he was never bumptious or presumptive, he was gentle." — Brian Cox, quoted in The Guardian, 15 Jan. 2016

Did You Know?

Etymologists believe that bumptious was probably coined, perhaps playfully, from the noun bump plus -tious. (Think of the obtrusive way an overly assertive person might "bump" through a crowd.) When bumptious was first used around 1800, it meant "conceited." Charles Dickens used it that way in David Copperfield: "His hair was very smooth and wavy; but I was informed … that it was a wig … and that he needn't be so 'bounceable'—somebody else said 'bumptious'—about it, because his own red hair was very plainly to be seen behind."