Word of the Day

: May 4, 2009

bombast

noun BAHM-bast

What It Means

: pretentious inflated speech or writing

bombast in Context

Laura complained that the editorial columns in her local newspaper were full of bombast and offered little in the way of intelligent opinion.

Did You Know?

The original meaning of "bombast" (now obsolete) is "cotton or any soft fibrous material used as padding or stuffing." It is derived through Middle French "bombace," from Medieval Latin "bombax," which means "cotton." "Bombax" in turn comes from "bombyx," a Latin and ultimately Greek word that means "silkworm" or "silk." Etymologists aren't certain why the shift from silk to cotton occurred, though one source attributes it to an error going back to the Roman scholar Pliny, who had reported that cotton was produced by an insect analogous to the silkworm. "Bombast" has been retained in modern English because it took on a figurative sense used in reference to speech or writing. Thus the basic sense of "stuffing or padding" has survived, but now the stuffing consists of words rather than cotton.