Word of the Day

: September 30, 2018

rodomontade

noun rah-duh-mun-TAYD

What It Means

1 : a bragging speech

2 : vain boasting or bluster : rant

rodomontade in Context

"In the hands of the Philadelphia Artists' Collective, [Maria Marten, or, Murder in the Red Barn] becomes a rowdy lark full of rodomontade and dastardly deeds. Directed by Charlotte Northeast with gusto and goofiness, this is both a 19th-century melodrama and a burlesque of a 19th-century melodrama." — Toby Zinman, The Philadelphia Inquirer, 5 Jan. 2018

"That he should credit such a rodomontade, and carry the pamphlet on his bosom and the words in his heart, is the clear proof of the man's lunacy." — Robert Louis Stevenson, The Master of Ballantrae, 1889

Did You Know?

Rodomontade (which can also be spelled rhodomontade) originated in Italian poetry. Rodomonte was a fierce and boastful king in Orlando Innamorato, Count Matteo M. Boiardo's late 15th century epic, and later in the 1516 sequel Orlando Furioso, written by poet Lodovico Ariosto. In the late 16th century, English speakers began to use rodomont as a noun meaning "braggart." Soon afterwards, rodomontade entered the language as a noun meaning "empty bluster" or "bragging speech," and later as an adjective meaning "boastful" or "ranting."