bombastic

Etymology

It is formed from English bombast + -ic.^[2][3][4][5] The noun bombast, first cotton padding and then inflated language, is a variant with an added -t of obsolete bombace,^[5][3][6] which is from Old French bombace (“cotton, cotton wadding”),^[4][5] from Medieval Latin bombax (“cotton”).^[7][8] Barnhart and Merriam-Webster take the Medieval Latin word back through a form in Greek to Middle Persian pambak (“cotton”),^[5][3] with its first syllable influenced, according to Barnhart, by Latin bombȳx (“silk”), from Ancient Greek βόμβυξ (bómbux, “silk, silkworm”).^[5] Johnson derived bombast instead from Bombastius, one of the names of Paracelsus, for his high-sounding talk,^[9] and Klein also connects it with that name.^[10]

Earliest recorded meaning

Of language, grand-sounding and forceful but without real substance: 1648, in a work by J. Simpson, the first record in the OED's entry as revised in 2025.^[2] Merriam-Webster gives 1660,^[3] Dictionary.com 1695–1705,^[11] and Etymonline and Barnhart 1704.^[4][5] The longer form bombastical is dated to the 1640s by Etymonline and to 1649 by Barnhart.^[4][5]

Semantic evolution

The adjective continues a figurative use of the noun: bombast was stuffing for clothes and upholstery, and since the 1580s the word has been applied to pompous, empty speech,^[4][5] so that the padding now consists of words instead of cotton.^[12] From 1681 the adjective was used of a person given to overblown language, or of one with an arrogant, swaggering manner.^[2] Etymonline dates that sense, "given to bombastic language", to 1727.^[4]

Timeline

• 1648 – of language, grand-sounding but lacking substance.^[2] Etymonline dates the adjective, in the sense "inflated", to 1704.^[4]
• 1649 – the longer form bombastical.^[5] Etymonline gives the 1640s.^[4]
• 1681 – of a person, given to pompous language.^[2]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Of speech or writing: high-sounding and pompous, with little real meaning: a bombastic campaign address.^[13][2][7]
2. Of a person: given to bombast, or arrogant and swaggering in manner: a bombastic after-dinner speaker.^[3][2]

Word family

• bombastically
• unbombastic

Related words

• bombast
• bombazine

Usage notes

Dictionary.com distinguishes four words for language more elaborate than its content justifies: bombastic suggests a stagy style too declamatory for the sentiment, flowery extravagant images and ornate phrases, pretentious deliberate inflation meant to impress, and verbose the use of more words than are needed.^[11]

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
4. ^ a b c d e f g h Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
6. ^ Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
7. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
8. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
9. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
10. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
11. ^ a b Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
12. ^ Merriam-Webster's Book of Word Histories, Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
13. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press