▪ I. bombast, n.
(ˈbɒm-, ˈbʌmbəst, -bæst)
Forms: 6 bom-, bumbaste, 6–8 bumbast, 6– bombast.
[A variant of bombace, bombase (F. bombace), in 16th c. pronounced (bɔmˈbaːs), the t being either simply phonetic (the converse of bass, bast) or perhaps influenced by the pa. pple. bombast of bombase v. Originally accented on second syllable, as still in Byron: but already in Shakespeare on the first. Most dictionaries make the first syllable (bʌm-), but contemporary usage favours (bɒm-).]
† 1. The soft down of the cotton-plant; raw cotton; cotton-wool. Obs.
| 1568 T. Howell Arb. Amitie (1879) 61 From all meate soft, as wooll and flaxe, bombaste and winds that bloe. 1582 J. Hester Secr. Phiorav. ii. xx. 99 Wet a little Bumbast in our Caustick. 1597 Gerard Herbal ii. cccxxxv. 901 Called in English & French, Cotton, Bombaste & Bombace. 1615 G. Sandys Trav. 15 The head [of the Cotton plant]..ripening breakes, and is deliuered of a white soft Bombast. 1665 G. Havers P. della Valle's Trav. 23 Which linnen..is altogether of Bumbast or Cotton, (there being no Flax in India). |
† b. attrib. Cotton. Obs.
| 1599 Hakluyt Voy. II. i. 222 Scarlet, or white Bumbast cloth. 1600 Dekker Gentle Craft 15 You bombast cotten-candle queane. 1653 Urquhart Rabelais iii. xli. (1737) III. 139 The bumbast and cotton bushes. |
† 2. Cotton-wool used as padding or stuffing for clothes, etc. Obs. exc. Hist.
| 1572 Gascoigne B. Withipoll, To stuff thy doublet full of such bumbaste. 1601 R. J. Kingd. & Commw. 140 Iacks quilted with bombast to resist arrowes. 1685 Crowne Sir C. Nice ii. 18 For the inside; do you like much bombast, madam? 1849 Mem. Kirkaldy of Gr. viii. 77 Their large..trunk-hose, being quilted and stuffed with bombast. |
† b. fig. Padding, stuffing; stopping of the ears.
| 1575 Gascoigne Wks. (1587) 83 It hath no bumbast now, but skin and bones. 1588 Shakes. L.L.L. v. ii. 791 As bumbast and as lining to the time. 1631 Celestina x. 120 Frame..for your eares the bumbast or stuffing of sufferance and bearing. |
3. fig. Inflated or turgid language; high-sounding language on a trivial or commonplace subject; ‘fustian’; ‘tall talk’. [This sense has been erroneously supposed to have originated in the name of Paracelsus (P. A. T. Bombast von Hohenheim).]
| 1589 Nashe in Greene Menaphon (Arb.) Ded. 6 To out⁓brave better pens with the swelling bumbast of a bragging blanke verse. a 1625 Fletcher Chances v. iii, I like his words well; there's no bombast in 'em. 1710 Pope Lett. Wks. 1736 V. 107 The ambition of surprising a reader, is the true natural cause of all fustian, or bombast in poetry. 1762 Kames Elem. Crit. iv. (1833) 124 False sublime known by the name of bombast. 1811 Byron Hints fr. Hor. 44 Another soars, inflated with bombast. 1850 Kingsley Alt. Locke xxxiii. (1879) 342 Their eloquence is all bombast. |
b. transf.
| 1817 Coleridge Biog. Lit. 221 What might be called mental bombast, as distinguished from verbal. 1821 Craig Lect. Drawing iv. 213, I have insuperable objections to this sort of bombast in painting. |
▪ II. bombast, v. arch.
[f. prec. n., which see for pronunciation: in the vb. the accent is more frequently on the final syllable.]
† 1. To stuff, pad, or fill out with cotton-wool, or the like. Obs.
| 1565 Jewel Repl. Harding (1611) To Rdr. 2 To couer the smalnesse..of their bodies, [he] had bomebasted, and embossed out their coates. 1576 Gascoigne Steele Gl. Epil. 82 [They] bumbast, bolster, frisle and perfume. 1650 Bulwer Anthropomet. xvi. 162 They bumbast their Doublets. 1820 Scott Abbot xv, My stomach has no room for it; it is..too well bumbasted out with straw and buckram. |
2. fig. and transf. To stuff, swell out, inflate.
| 1566 J. Studley Seneca's Medea (1581) 136 Her hawty breast bumbasted is wyth pryde. 1599 Nashe Lent. Stuffe (1871) 58 The first should have his gut bombasted with beef. 1607 Chapman Bussy D'Amb. Plays 1873 II. 43 A great man..that by his greatnesse Bumbasts his private roofes, with public riches. 1624 T. Scott Vox Dei 68 A place and people that..bombasted their reputations with the winde of complement. 1633 Heywood Eng. Trav. Prol, Not so much..As Song, Dance, Masque, to bumbaste out a Play. 1822 Southey in Q. Rev. XXVII. 34 The want of incidents..he has endeavoured to supply by invention, and in bombasting the fable with machinery. |
b. To swell out, render grandiose (a speech or literary composition) with bombastic language.
| 1573 R. Scot Hop Gard. (1578) Epist., Not bumbasting the same with the figures and flowers of eloquence. 1599 Bp. Hall Sat. i. iv. 9 Then strives he to bumbast his feeble lines With farre-fetcht phrase. 1603 Florio Montaigne i. xxv. (1632) 83 That doth..bumbast his labours with high swelling and heaven-disimbowelling words. |
▪ III. ˈbombast, ppl. a.
Also 6–7 bumbast(e.
[pa. pple. of bombase v. to stuff; but in later use hardly separable from the n. used attrib.]
† 1. Stuffed, padded, puffed out. Obs.
| 1575 Gascoigne Wks. (1587) 157 Hys bombast hose wyth linings manifold. 1656 Artif. Handsomeness 44 A bumbast or bolstered garment. |
2. fig. Puffed, empty, inflated; over-elaborate. Of language: Turgid, grandiloquent, bombastic.
| 1604 Shakes. Oth. i. i. 13 A bumbast circumstance, Horribly stufft with Epithites of warre. 1616 Pasquil & Kath. iv. 316, I doe hate these bumbaste wits, That are puft vp with arrogant conceit. 1674 R. Godfrey Inj. & Ab. Physic 122 He scorns to be frightened at a Bombast word, or Fustian Term. 1781 Gibbon Decl. & F. (1802) VI. 134 note, Forty bombast lines. 1834 Fraser's Mag. X. 435 A frothy, verbose, and bombast writer. 1842 Maitland Notes &c. ii. 26. |
▪ IV. bombast(e
variant of bumbaste v. Obs.