bombastical
English
[edit]Etymology
[edit]Adjective
[edit]bombastical (comparative more bombastical, superlative most bombastical)
- (archaic) bombastic
- 1750, Richard Burton, Masters of the English Novel[1]:
- Men's future upon earth does not attract it; their honesty and shapeliness in the present does; and whenever they were out of proportion, overthrown, affected, pretentious, bombastical, hypocritical, pedantic, fantastically delicate; whenever it sees them self-deceived or hoodwinked, given to run riot in idolatries, drifting into vanities, congregating in absurdities, planning shortsightedly, plotting dementedly; whenever they are at variance with their professions, and violate the unwritten but perceptible laws binding them in consideration one to another; whenever they offend sound reason, fair justice; are false in humility or mined with conceit, individually or in the bulk--the Spirit overhead will look humanly malign and cast an oblique light on them, followed by volleys of silvery laughter.
- 1829, Thomas Frognall Dibdin, A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume Two[2]:
- My translator shall here have the full benefit of his own bombastical nonsense.
- 1907, John Morley, Burke[3]:
- To heap up that incessant iteration about thieves, murderers, housebreakers, assassins, bandits, bravoes with their hands dripping with blood and their maw gorged with property, desperate paramours, bombastical players, the refuse and rejected offal of strolling theatres, bloody buffoons, bloody felons--all this was as unjust to hundreds of disinterested, honest, and patriotic men who were then earnestly striving to restore a true order and solid citizenship in France, as the foul-mouthed scurrility of an Irish Orangeman is unjust to millions of devout Catholics.