Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- adjective Characterized by excessive self-esteem or exaggerated dignity; pretentious.
- adjective Full of high-sounding phrases; bombastic.
- adjective Archaic Characterized by pomp or stately display.
from The Century Dictionary.
- 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.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- adjective Displaying pomp; stately; showy with grandeur; magnificent.
- adjective Ostentatious; pretentious; boastful; vainlorious
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- adjective Affectedly
grand ,solemn orself-important .
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- adjective characterized by pomp and ceremony and stately display
- adjective puffed up with vanity
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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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
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As Jon Stewart deftly demonstrates, the way to puncture the pompous is to poke a sharp stick at their soft underbelly.
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What you call pompous, some call "necessary changes."
Re How to Train Your Dragon Steve Hulett 2009
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Being pompous is one thing, having a genuine knowledge of something is quite different.
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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 2006
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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 1905
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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.
Historical Essays James Ford Rhodes 1887
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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
The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire 1206
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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.
The Influence of Cartoons Can Be Found Everywhere Jaime J. Weinman 2007
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Being called pompous by Will is high praise indeed.
"Webb... has become a pompous poseur and an abuser of the English language before actually becoming a senator." Ann Althouse 2006
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