bombast

bombast
    n 1: pompous or pretentious talk or writing [syn: {bombast},
         {fustian}, {rant}, {claptrap}, {blah}]
    

Bombast \Bom"bast\ (b[o^]m"b[.a]st or b[u^]m"b[.a]st; 277), n.
   [OF. bombace cotton, LL. bombax cotton, bombasium a doublet
   of cotton; hence, padding, wadding, fustian. See
   {Bombazine}.]
   1. Originally, cotton, or cotton wool. [Obs.]
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            A candle with a wick of bombast.      --Lupton.
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   2. Cotton, or any soft, fibrous material, used as stuffing
      for garments; stuffing; padding. [Obs.]
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            How now, my sweet creature of bombast! --Shak.
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            Doublets, stuffed with four, five, or six pounds of
            bombast at least.                     --Stubbes.
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   3. Fig.: High-sounding words; an inflated style; language
      above the dignity of the occasion; fustian.
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            Yet noisy bombast carefully avoid.    --Dryden.
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Bombast \Bom"bast\, a.
   High-sounding; inflated; big without meaning; magniloquent;
   bombastic.
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         [He] evades them with a bombast circumstance,
         Horribly stuffed with epithets of war.   --Shak.
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         Nor a tall metaphor in bombast way.      --Cowley.
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Bombast \Bom*bast"\ (b[o^]m*b[.a]st" or b[u^]m*b[.a]st"), v. t.
   To swell or fill out; to pad; to inflate. [Obs.]
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         Not bombasted with words vain ticklish ears to feed.
                                                  --Drayton.
   [1913 Webster] Bombastic
    

90 Moby Thesaurus words for "bombast":
      absurdity, amphigory, babble, babblement, balderdash,
      bibble-babble, blabber, blather, bluster, boast, boastfulness,
      boasting, bombastry, brag, braggadocio, braggartism, bragging,
      bravado, claptrap, conceit, double-talk, drivel, drool,
      fanfaronade, fiddle-faddle, fiddledeedee, flatulence, flummery,
      folderol, fudge, fustian, gabble, galimatias, gammon, gasconade,
      gasconism, gibber, gibberish, gibble-gabble, gobbledygook,
      grandiloquence, heroics, highfalutin, hocus-pocus, hot air, humbug,
      jabber, jactation, jactitation, jargon, lexiphanicism,
      magniloquence, mumbo jumbo, narrishkeit, niaiserie, nonsense,
      orotundity, pack of nonsense, palaver, prate, prattle, puffery,
      pyrotechnics, rant, rhapsody, rhetoric, rigamarole, rigmarole,
      rodomontade, rubbish, sesquipedality, show, side, skimble-skamble,
      stuff and nonsense, stultiloquence, swagger, trash, trumpery,
      tumidity, turgidity, twaddle, twattle, twiddle-twaddle, vanity,
      vaporing, vaunt, vauntery, vaunting, waffling