bombast

Bolls of cotton on a cotton plant (Gossypium) in Ware County, Georgia, USA. Bombast is an archaic name for cotton or cotton wool (sense 1).

From Old French bombace (“cotton, cotton wadding”), from Late Latin bombax (“cotton”), a variant of bombyx (“silkworm”), from Ancient Greek βόμβυξ (bómbux, “silkworm”), possibly related to Middle Persian pmbk' (“cotton”), from a Proto-Indo-European root meaning “to twist, wind”.[1]

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈbɒmbæst/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈbɑmbæst/
• Hyphenation: bom‧bast

bombast (countable and uncountable, plural bombasts)

1. (archaic) Cotton, or cotton wool.
   • 1725, [Noël] Chomel, “SURBATING”, in R[ichard] Bradley, editor, Dictionaire Oeconomique: Or, The Family Dictionary. […], in Two Volumes, […], volume II (I–Z), London: Printed for D. Midwinter, […], OCLC 991191027, column 2:

     SURBATING; a Diſtemper in a Horſe, who is ſaid to be ſurbated, when the Sole is worn, bruiſed or ſpoiled by travelling without Shoes, or with ill ſhoeing: […] take Frankincenſe, and rolling it in a little fine Cotton Wool or Bombaſt, with a hot Iron melt it into the Foot betwixt the Shoe and the Toe, until the Orifice, where the Blood was taken away, is fill'd up; […]

   • [[1874], S. W[arren], “The Wool-bearing Shrub”, in Cotton, London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge; New York, N.Y.: Pott, Young, & Co., OCLC 144674132, page 14:

     This strange wool-bearing plant is of the mallow tribe. […] Another name formerly given to the vegetable fleece was bombast. This word was in use before our ancestors were skilful enough to weave the cotton wool which was brought to them from the East in the merchant ships of Venice and Genoa. What they did not want for candle-wicks, they employed in stuffing and wadding their doublets and other articles of dress.]

2. (archaic) Cotton, or any soft, fibrous material, used as stuffing for garments; stuffing, padding.
   • 1583 May 1, Phillip Stubbes [i.e., Philip Stubbs], The Anatomie of Abuses: Contayning a Discouerie, or Briefe Summarie of such Notable Vices and Imperfections, as now Raigne in Many Christian Countreyes of the Worlde: But (especiallie) in a Verie Famous Ilande called Ailgna: Together, with Most Fearefull Examples of Gods Iudgementes, Executed vpon the Wicked for the Same, aswell in Ailgna of late, as in Other Places, elsewhere. Verie Godly, to be Read of All True Christians, euerie where: But Most Needefull, to be Regarded in Englande. Made Dialogue-wise, by Phillip Stubbes. Seene and Allowed, according to Order, London: Printed at London by [John Kingston for] Richard Iones, OCLC 837710014; 3rd edition, London: Printed at London, by Richard Iones, [dwellyng at the signe of the Rose and the Crowne, neere vnto Holborne Bridge], 1585, OCLC 837957584, folio 23, recto and verso:

     [C]ertayne I am there was neuer any kinde of apparell euer inuented, that could more diſproportion the body of man, then theſe Dublettes with great bellies hanging downe beneath their Pudenda, (as I haue ſayd) & ſtuffed with foure, fiue, or ſixe pound of Bombaſt at the least: […]

   • c. 1597, William Shakespeare, “The First Part of Henry the Fourth, with the Life and Death of Henry, Sirnamed Hot-spvrre”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies: Published According to the True Originall Copies, London: Printed by Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, OCLC 606515358, Act II, scene iv, page 58, column 1:

     Heere comes leane Iacke, heere comes bare-bone. How now my ſweet Creature of Bombaſt, how long is't agoe, Iacke, ſince thou ſaw'ſt thine owne Knee?

3. (figuratively) High-sounding words; language above the dignity of the occasion; a pompous or ostentatious manner of writing or speaking.
   • 1760, John Dryden, “The Art of Poetry”, in Samuel Derrick, editor, The Miscellaneous Works of John Dryden, Esq; Containing All His Original Poems, Tales, and Translations. Now First Collected and Published together in Four Volumes, with Explanatory Notes and Observations. Also an Account of His Life and Writings, volume I, London: Printed for J[acob] and R[ichard] Tonson in the Strand, OCLC 559918734, canto I, pages 320–321:

     And let burleſque in ballads be employ'd; / Yet noiſy bombaſt carefully avoid, / Nor think to raiſe, tho on Pharſalia's plain, "Millions of mourning mountains of the ſlain:" […]

   • 1899 January 16, William G[raham] Sumner, The Conquest of the United States by Spain: A Lecture before the Phi Beta Kappa Society of Yale University, January 16, 1899, Boston, Mass.: Dana Estes & Company, 212 Summer Street, OCLC 5711584, page 30:

     Upon a little serious examination, the off-hand disposal of an important question of policy, by the declaration that Americans can do anything, proves to be only a silly piece of bombast, and, upon a little reflection, we find that our hands are quite full at home of problems, by the solution of which the peace and happiness of the American people could be greatly increased.

   • 2017 March 1, Anthony Zurcher, “Trump addresses Congress: A kinder, gentler president”, in BBC News‎, archived from the original on 5 June 2017:

     At least for one night, Donald Trump put aside the bombast and bellicosity of a campaign that seemed to bleed into his presidency.

• (cotton or cotton wool): fustian
• (high-sounding words): aureation, bombard phrase (obsolete), fustian, grandiloquence, purple prose

• bombastic
• bombastical
• bombastically
• bombastry

bombast (third-person singular simple present bombasts, present participle bombasting, simple past and past participle bombasted)

1. To swell or fill out; to inflate, to pad.
   • 1820, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, “Notes on [Richard] Baxter’s Life of Himself”, in Henry Nelson Coleridge, editor, The Literary Remains of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, volume IV, London: William Pickering, published 1839, OCLC 752429119, page 90:

     Their doctrine is to be seen in Jacob Behmen's books by him that hath nothing else to do, than to bestow a great deal of time to understand him that was not willing to be easily understood, and to know that his bombasted words do signify nothing more than before was easily known by common familiar terms.

2. To use high-sounding words; to speak or write in a pompous or ostentatious manner.
   • 1968, Christianna Brand, What Dread Hand?: A Collection of Short Stories, London: Michael Joseph, OCLC 34886:

     [']The ugly truth is, Gerald,' she said viciously, 'that you're a phoney, a rotten, bombasting phoney, trying to cover up from all the world, […][']

bombast (comparative more bombast, superlative most bombast)

1. Big without meaning, or high-sounding; bombastic, inflated; magniloquent.
   • c. 1603–1604, William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Othello, the Moore of Venice”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies: Published According to the True Originall Copies, London: Printed by Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, OCLC 606515358, Act I, scene i, page 310, column 1:

     But he (as louing his owne pride, and purpoſes) / Euades them, with a bumbaſt Circumſtance, / Horribly ſtufft with Epithites of warre, / Non-ſuites my Mediators.

   • 1668, Abraham Cowley, “Ode. Of Wit.”, in The Works of Mr. Abraham Cowley. Consisting of Those which were Formerly Printed: And Those which He Design'd for the Press, Now Published out of the Authors Original Copies, London: Printed by J[ohn] M[acock] for Henry Herringman, at the sign of the Blew Anchor in the lower walk of the New Exchange, OCLC 875071647; 5th edition, London: Printed by J[ohn] M[acock] for Henry Herringman, at the sign of the Blue Anchor in the lower walk of the New Exchange, 1678, OCLC 960099431, stanza 7, page 3:

     'Tis not ſuch Lines as almoſt crack the Stage. / When Bajazet begins to rage. / Nor a tall Met'phor in the Bombaſt way, / Nor the dry chips of ſhort-lung'd Seneca.

• aureate
• highfalutin

• fustian on Wikipedia.Wikipedia