bombast

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. ] [ 1913 Webster ]

A candle with a wick of bombast. Lupton. [ 1913 Webster ]

2. Cotton, or any soft, fibrous material, used as stuffing for garments; stuffing; padding. [ Obs. ] [ 1913 Webster ]

How now, my sweet creature of bombast! Shak. [ 1913 Webster ]

Doublets, stuffed with four, five, or six pounds of bombast at least. Stubbes. [ 1913 Webster ]

3. Fig.: High-sounding words; an inflated style; language above the dignity of the occasion; fustian. [ 1913 Webster ]

Yet noisy bombast carefully avoid. Dryden. [ 1913 Webster ]

a. High-sounding; inflated; big without meaning; magniloquent; bombastic. [ 1913 Webster ]

[ He ] evades them with a bombast circumstance,
Horribly stuffed with epithets of war. Shak. [ 1913 Webster ]

Nor a tall metaphor in bombast way. Cowley. [ 1913 Webster ]

v. t. To swell or fill out; to pad; to inflate. [ Obs. ] [ 1913 Webster ]

Not bombasted with words vain ticklish ears to feed. Drayton. [ 1913 Webster ]

{ } a. Characterized by bombast; high-sounding; inflated. -- Bom*bas"tic*al*ly, adv. [1913 Webster]

A theatrical, bombastic, windy phraseology. Burke. [1913 Webster]

Syn. -- Turgid; tumid; pompous; grandiloquent. [1913 Webster]