Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. A coarse sturdy cloth made of cotton and flax.
- n. Any of several thick twilled cotton fabrics, such as corduroy, having a short nap.
- n. Pretentious speech or writing; pompous language.
- adj. Made of or as if of fustian: "[He] disliked the heavy, fustian ... and brocaded decor of Soviet officialdom” ( Frederick Forsyth).
- adj. Pompous, bombastic, and ranting: "Yossarian was unmoved by the fustian charade of the burial ceremony” ( Joseph Heller).
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. Formerly, a stout cloth, supposed to have been of cotton or cotton and flax. It was in use in Europe throughout the middle ages. In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries priests' robes and women's dresses were made of it, and there were both cheap and costly varieties. It appears to have been worn when strength and durability were required, and gradually the use of it was confined to servants and laborers. In the reign of Edward III. the name was given to a similar fabric woven of wool, the nap of which was sheared.
- n. In present use, a stout twilled cotton fabric, especially that which has a short nap, variously called corduroy, moleskin, beaverteen, velveteen, thickset, etc., according to the way in which it is finished. See pillow.
- n. An inflated or turgid style of speaking or writing, characterized by the use of high-sounding phrases and exaggerated metaphors, and running into hyperbole and rant; empty phrasing.
- n. A potation composed of the yolks of eggs, white wine or other liquor, lemon, and spices.
- n. Synonyms Turgidness, Rant, etc. See bombast.
- Made of fustian.
- Pompous in style; ridiculously tumid; bombastic.
Wiktionary
- n. A kind of coarse twilled cotton or cotton and linen stuff
- n. A class of cloth including corduroy and velveteen
- n. Pompous, inflated or pretentious writing or speech
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. A kind of coarse twilled cotton or cotton and linen stuff, including corduroy, velveteen, etc.
- n. An inflated style of writing; a kind of writing in which high-sounding words are used, above the dignity of the thoughts or subject; bombast.
- adj. Made of fustian.
- adj. Pompous; ridiculously tumid; inflated; bombastic.
WordNet 3.0
- n. a strong cotton and linen fabric with a slight nap
- n. pompous or pretentious talk or writing
Etymologies
- Middle English, from Old French fustaigne, from Medieval Latin fūstānum, fūstiānum, possibly from Latin fūstis, wooden stick, club (translation of Greek xulinos, wood-linen, cotton) or from El Fostat (El Fustat), a section of Cairo, Egypt.
Examples
“Others who have a great deal of fire, but have not excellent organs, feel the fore-mentioned motions, without the extraordinary hints; and these we call fustian writers. ”
The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland
“Quarry Bank had also begun weaving, and like many of the mills near here produced a fabric called fustian, also known as”
“I am much deceived if this be not abominable fustian, that is, thoughts and words ill-sorted, and without the least relation to each other; yet I dare not answer for an audience, that they would not clap it on the stage: so little value there is to be given to the common cry, that nothing but madness can please madmen, and the poet must be of a piece with the spectators, to gain a reputation with them.”
The works of John Dryden, $c now first collected in eighteen volumes. $p Volume 06
“Why should he deny himself his velvet? it is but a kind of fustian which costs him eighteenpence a yard.”
“The former of these two offences differs from the latter by the difference between "fustian" and "gush.”
“And the impertinent patronage of worshippers in "fustian" is at least as offensive as the older-fashioned vulgarity of pride in congregations who "come in their own carriages.”
“The second rate fustian squeezes out what is interesting in Saxons, Vikings, and Celts, namely, the evidence concerning the ancestry of the English, Scottish, Welsh and Irish people.”
“This unidentified artist specialized in depictions of Italian peasants wearing jackets, aprons and dresses made from what was then called "genes," fustian cotton named after its assumed city of origin in Genoa, Italy.”
“Traditional dress, however we define it, is currently pretty rare, though film-makers, no doubt because of the continuing popularity of Roman epics, reached for their togas when Charlton Heston appeared in fustian versions of Julius Caesar and Antony and Cleopatra.”
“The "inquisition tyrannies" of the church's crackdown had "dampened the glory of Italian wits; that nothing had been there written, now these many years, but flattery and fustian.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘fustian’.
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Logolepsy
"Luciferous Logolepsy is a collection of over 9,000 obscure English words. Though the definition of an 'English' word might seem to be straightforward, it is not. There exist so many adopted, deriv...
Anschauung, Areopagus, Argus, Briarean, Dei gratia, Dei judicium, Deo volente, Duecento, Foehn, Geflugelte Worte, Gegenschein, Hakenkreuz and 9230 more...
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wales
in honor of corduroy
pinwale, narrow wale, wide wale, fustian, strake, gunwale, gunnel, dwale, lichwale, swale, outwale, cordillera
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Your Grandfather's Bad Old World
chicanery, ballyhoo, thaumaturgy, inveigle, wheedle, buncombe, balderdash, twaddle, fustian, lexiphanic, obstreperous, autochthonous and 1 more...
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MetaFilter Nomenclature
words from everyone's favorite community weblog
jaime_d "a farrago without fustian" Gilbert Adair translation of Georges Perec's La Disparition Aug 11, 2010
zentennum n. stout fabric; adj. pompous, worthless Aug 22, 2009
sera "Pompous or pretentious talk or writing" Aug 13, 2007