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POMPOUS
| Pronunciation (US): |  | (GB): | |
I. (adjective)
Sense 1
Meaning:
Puffed up with vanity
Example:
pseudo-scientific gobbledygook and pontifical hooey
Synonyms:
grandiloquent; overblown; pompous; pontifical; portentous
Classified under:
Similar:
pretentious (making claim to or creating an appearance of (often undeserved) importance or distinction)
Derivation:
pomp (cheap or pretentious or vain display)
pomposity; pompousness (lack of elegance as a consequence of being pompous and puffed up with vanity)
Sense 2
Meaning:
Characterized by pomp and ceremony and stately display
Synonyms:
ceremonious; pompous
Classified under:
Relational adjectives (pertainyms)
Pertainym:
pomp (ceremonial elegance and splendor)
Derivation:
pomp (ceremonial elegance and splendor)
Context examples:
In pompous nothings on his side, and civil assents on that of his cousins, their time passed till they entered Meryton.
(Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen)
Pompous old ass!
(Martin Eden, by Jack London)
She had, likewise, a fierce and a hard eye: it reminded me of Mrs. Reed's; she mouthed her words in speaking; her voice was deep, its inflections very pompous, very dogmatical,—very intolerable, in short.
(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)
We have had some dramatic entrances and exits upon our small stage at Baker Street, but I cannot recollect anything more sudden and startling than the first appearance of Thorneycroft Huxtable, M.A., Ph.D., etc. His card, which seemed too small to carry the weight of his academic distinctions, preceded him by a few seconds, and then he entered himself—so large, so pompous, and so dignified that he was the very embodiment of self-possession and solidity.
(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
My dear Jane, Mr. Collins is a conceited, pompous, narrow-minded, silly man; you know he is, as well as I do; and you must feel, as well as I do, that the woman who married him cannot have a proper way of thinking.
(Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen)
I really don't object to platitudes, he told Ruth later; but what worries me into nervousness is the pompous, smugly complacent, superior certitude with which they are uttered and the time taken to do it.
(Martin Eden, by Jack London)
