bombast

Meanings

Noun

• Cotton, or cotton wool.
• Cotton, or any soft, fibrous material, used as stuffing for garments; stuffing, padding.
• High-sounding words; language above the dignity of the occasion; a pompous or ostentatious manner of writing or speaking.

Verb

• To swell or fill out; to inflate, to pad.
• To use high-sounding words; to speak or write in a pompous or ostentatious manner.

Adjective

• Big without meaning, or high-sounding; bombastic, inflated; magniloquent.

Origin

• "), from Late Latin bombax, a variant of bombyx, from Ancient Greek βόμβυξ, possibly related to Middle Persian pmbk', from a Proto-Indo-European root meaning “to twist, wind”.