bombast

noun

1. (archaic, countable, uncountable)Cotton, or cotton wool.

   “SURBATING; a Diſtemper in a Horſe, who is ſaid to be ſurbated, when the Sole is worn, bruiſed or ſpoiled by travelling without Shoes, or with ill ſhoeing: [...] take Frankincenſe, and rolling it in a little fine Cotton Wool or Bombaſt, with a hot Iron melt it into the Foot betwixt the Shoe and the Toe, until the Orifice, where the Blood was taken away, is fill'd up; [...]”

   “This strange wool-bearing plant is of the mallow tribe. [...] Another name formerly given to the vegetable fleece was bombast. This word was in use before our ancestors were skilful enough to weave the cotton wool which was brought to them from the East in the merchant ships of Venice and Genoa. What they did not want for candle-wicks, they employed in stuffing and wadding their doublets and other articles of dress.”

2. (archaic, countable, uncountable)Cotton, or any soft, fibrous material, used as stuffing for garments; stuffing, padding.

   “[C]ertayne I am there was neuer any kinde of apparell euer inuented, that could more diſproportion the body of man, then theſe Dublettes with great bellies hanging downe beneath their Pudenda, (as I haue ſayd) & ſtuffed with foure, fiue, or ſixe pound of Bombaſt at the least: [...]”

   “Heere comes leane Iacke, heere comes bare-bone. How now my ſweet Creature of Bombaſt, how long is't agoe, Iacke, ſince thou ſaw'ſt thine owne Knee?”

3. (countable, figuratively, uncountable)High-sounding words; language above the dignity of the occasion; a pompous or ostentatious manner of writing or speaking.

   “Bombaſt and Buffoonry, by Nature lofty and light, ſoar higheſt of all, [...]”

   “And let burleſque in ballads be employ'd; / Yet noiſy bombaſt carefully avoid, / Nor think to raiſe, tho on Pharſalia's plain, "Millions of mourning mountains of the ſlain:" [...]”

   “Upon a little serious examination, the off-hand disposal of an important question of policy, by the declaration that Americans can do anything, proves to be only a silly piece of bombast, and, upon a little reflection, we find that our hands are quite full at home of problems, by the solution of which the peace and happiness of the American people could be greatly increased.”

   “At least for one night, Donald Trump put aside the bombast and bellicosity of a campaign that seemed to bleed into his presidency.”

verb

1. To swell or fill out; to inflate, to pad.

   “Their doctrine is to be seen in Jacob Behmen's books by him that hath nothing else to do, than to bestow a great deal of time to understand him that was not willing to be easily understood, and to know that his bombasted words do signify nothing more than before was easily known by common familiar terms.”

2. To use high-sounding words; to speak or write in a pompous or ostentatious manner.

   “[']The ugly truth is, Gerald,' she said viciously, 'that you're a phoney, a rotten, bombasting phoney, trying to cover up from all the world,[…][']”

adj

1. Big without meaning, or high-sounding; bombastic, inflated; magniloquent.

   “But he (as louing his owne pride, and purpoſes) / Euades them, with a bumbaſt Circumſtance, / Horribly ſtufft with Epithites of warre, / Non-ſuites my Mediators.”

   “'Tis not ſuch Lines as almoſt crack the Stage. / When Bajazet begins to rage. / Nor a tall Met'phor in the Bombaſt way, / Nor the dry chips of ſhort-lung'd Seneca.”