Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- adj. Characterized by excessive self-esteem or exaggerated dignity; pretentious: pompous officials who enjoy giving orders.
- adj. Full of high-sounding phrases; bombastic: a pompous proclamation.
- adj. Chracterized by pomp or stately display; ceremonious: a pompous occasion.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- Full of or characterized by pomp or showy display; ostentatiously grand, dignified, or magnificent; splendid; stately: as, a pompous triumph; a pompous procession.
- Exhibiting self-importance or an exaggerated sense of dignity; ostentatiously dignified or self-important; lofty: as, a pompous style; pompous in manners.
- Synonyms Superb, grand, august, lofty, dignified.—
- Magisterial, swelling, inflated, bom bastic, grandiloquent, pretentious. That which gives pompous its distinctive character among these words and the words used in defining it is the idea of the display of magnificence for the sake of enhancing, properly or improperly, the dignity, etc., of the person or thing most concerned. A pompous procession gives dignity to a person thus welcomed to a city; a pompous deportment or manner of speech arises from the feeling of one's own importance and the effort to seem what one thinks himself to be. Pompous is used in a good sense now only when applied to public ceremonies or celebrations or the ways of courts.
Wiktionary
- adj. Affectedly grand, solemn or self-important.
GNU Webster's 1913
- adj. Displaying pomp; stately; showy with grandeur; magnificent.
- adj. Ostentatious; pretentious; boastful; vainlorious.
WordNet 3.0
- adj. characterized by pomp and ceremony and stately display
- adj. puffed up with vanity
Etymologies
- From Middle English, from Old French pompeux, from Late Latin pomposus, from Latin pompa ("pomp"), from Ancient Greek πομπή (pompē, "a sending, a solemn procession, pomp"), from πέμπω (pempō, "I send"). (Wiktionary)
- Middle English, from Old French pompeux, from Late Latin pompōsus, from Latin pompa, pomp; see pomp. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“Hijda Nights, originally uploaded by firoze shakir photographerno1. through the crowded bazars of haji malang the only sight hijda nights bedecked bejewelled garish and bright in pompous flight captured in the inner vision of a lens of a Shiite”
“As Jon Stewart deftly demonstrates, the way to puncture the pompous is to poke a sharp stick at their soft underbelly.”
“What you call pompous, some call "necessary changes.”
“Being pompous is one thing, having a genuine knowledge of something is quite different.”
“Stevie Bloom: I feel bad about making ad-homs, but whenever I see your posts, the word pompous comes to mind immediately.”
Peer Reviewing Ammann and Wahl #1 – The Correspondence « Climate Audit
“Mr. Crummles and the whole of his theatrical business is an admirable case of that first and most splendid quality in Dickens -- I mean the art of making something which in life we call pompous and dull, becoming in literature pompous and delightful.”
Appreciations and Criticisms of the Works of Charles Dickens
“Gibbon is sometimes called pompous, but place him by the side of Alison and what one may have previously called pompousness one now calls dignity.”
“53 His addresses to the eastern throne were respectful and ambiguous: he celebrated, in pompous style, the harmony of the two republics, applauded his own government as the perfect similitude of a sole and undivided empire, and claimed above the kings of the earth the same preeminence which he modestly allowed to the person or rank of”
“Keep in mind that the denizens of the Yankee Stadium bleachers actually do a chant for John Sterling, the Ted Baxter of play-by-play in other words, a pompous hack, so their taste should automatically be questioned.”
“Being called pompous by Will is high praise indeed.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘pompous’.
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probablyankita's list
Words are all I have to take your heart away
apartheid, techno-klutz, logorrheic, gordian knot, anodyne, odor of sanctity, finders keepers, foot-in-mouth dis..., dutch uncle, masquerade, smoke signals, furtive glance and 320 more...
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Psychology
Chapter 1
rigorous, occurrence, maze, divers, intellectual, expansion, all in all, sensation, introspection, radical, orientation, nurture and 174 more...
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People are Scum
words that one may enjoy using to describe other people or their actions
degenerate, reprobate, scapegrace, capricious, sycophant, arbitrary, infernal, abominable, iniquitous, nefarious, philistine, sadistic and 39 more...
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pedantic words
Busie old foole, unruly Sunne,..Sawcy pedantique wretch, goe chide Late schooleboyes.
pedagogic, schoolmasterly, academic, bookish, donnish, dry as dust, dryasdust, pedantic, erudite, formal, inkhorn, learned and 65 more...
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The insulting ones
ingrate, sycophant, inane, wanton, pompous, vitriolic, ghastly, cesspool, abhor, highfalutin, obsequious, insidious and 25 more...
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gre words
convoluted, deride, melancholy, antagonize, antagonize, deference, portentous, prodigious, ruminate, ineffable, turgid, mossy and 58 more...
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big book gre
abase, abbess, abbey, abbot, abdicate, abdomen, abdominal, abduction, abed, aberration, abet, abeyance and 6691 more...
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dharma66's list
words that pique my interest either by meaning, pronunciation, or spelling, and words that otherwise tickle my fancy!!
pique, elusive, serendipity, nefarious, redundant, pseudoscientific, obsequious, flack, quandary, impervious, perchance, translucent and 168 more...
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ChortleGiggleSnort
Significant Words- Guiding you on your path to Snazzibility
flimsy, feeble, ranting, ramble, narky, snazzy, yoghurt, bulbous, pustule, globulous, geranium, megalomaniac and 521 more...
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Twitter favorites
The new favourite words of people on Twitter.
A script searches Twitter for "X is my new favorite word" and adds it to this list.
See also:
grabbable, retuiteando, leaving, fantastic, absolutely, kurwa, hella, ridic, underpass, hate, interlude, plush and 2369 more... -
GRE
anomaly, assuage, enigma, equivocal, erudite, fervid, placate, lucid, opaque, precipitate, prodigal, zeal and 113 more...
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Aequoria's list
affect, deleterious, nuance, pliant, verbatim, pertinent, latter, municipality, provincial, voyeuristic, circumlocution, wane and 798 more...
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ADW1
obdurate, obstinate, behest, injunction, enjoin, circumspect, ensconce, discursive, lugubrious, doleful, somber, ken and 2476 more...
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Revised GRE Wordlist_2013
Vocabulary building for my quest of GRE 2013
ephemeral, esoteric, rhetoric, censure, egregious, pittance, dupe, mulct, paucity, alacrity, maintain, laconic and 997 more...
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G & G
GRE , GMAT , TOEFL , IELTS , SAT 。。。
alphabet soup, vernacular, aberrant, abeyance, abet, recant, contrite, reiterate, patois, skew, senate, deliberative and 179 more...
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samoritan's Words
moxie, zarf, crepuscular, serenity, halcyon, powerfuller, instant classic, abecedary, trilobite, doomsters, 'da bome, evanescence and 149 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for pompous.
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