Word of the Day

: June 8, 2021

bumptious

adjective BUMP-shus

What It Means

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

bumptious in Context

"The brash, bumptious New Yorkers I'd encountered in college had assured me that everything in New York was 'the best.'" — Herbert Buchsbaum, The New York Times, 19 Jan. 2021

"Since its introduction in the late 1990s, the Escalade has been the 118-year-old Detroit luxury brand’s flagship—its most expensive model, and the one that perhaps best represents the marque's distinctly American blend of bumptious brazenness, brassy luxury, and go-anywhere capability." — Brett Berk, Architectural Digest, 10 Feb. 2020

Did You Know?

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.