Adjacent Words

Pompous definitions

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Webster's 1828 Dictionary

POMP'OUS, a.
1. Displaying pomp; showy with grandeur; splendid; magnificent; as a pompous procession; a pompous triumph.
2. Ostentatious; boastful; as a pompous account of private adventures.

WordNet (r) 3.0 (2005)

adj
1: puffed up with vanity; "a grandiloquent and boastful manner"; "overblown oratory"; "a pompous speech"; "pseudo-scientific gobbledygook and pontifical hooey"- Newsweek [syn: grandiloquent, overblown, pompous, pontifical, portentous]
2: characterized by pomp and ceremony and stately display [syn: pompous, ceremonious]

Merriam Webster's

adjective Date: 15th century 1. excessively elevated or ornate <pompous rhetoric> 2. having or exhibiting self-importance ; arrogant <a pompous politician> 3. relating to or suggestive of pomp ; magnificent • pompously adverb • pompousness noun

Oxford Reference Dictionary

n. 1 self-important, affectedly grand or solemn. 2 (of language) pretentious; unduly grand in style. 3 archaic magnificent; splendid. Derivatives: pomposity n. (pl. -ies). pompously adv. pompousness n. Etymology: ME f. OF pompeux f. LL pomposus (as POMP)

Webster's 1913 Dictionary

Pompous Pomp"ous, a. [F. pompeux, L. pomposus. See Pomp.] 1. Displaying pomp; stately; showy with grandeur; magnificent; as, a pompous procession. 2. Ostentatious; pretentious; boastful; vainlorious; as, pompous manners; a pompous style. ``Pompous in high presumption.'' --Chaucer. he pompous vanity of the old schoolmistress. --Thackeray. -- Pom"ous*ly, adv. -- Pomp"ous*ness, n.

Collin's Cobuild Dictionary

1. If you describe someone as pompous, you mean that they behave or speak in a very serious way because they think they are more important than they really are. He was somewhat pompous and had a high opinion of his own capabilities. ADJ [disapproval] • pompously Robin said pompously that he had an important business appointment. ADV: usu ADV with v 2. A pompous building or ceremony is very grand and elaborate. The service was grand without being pompous. ADJ

Soule's Dictionary of English Synonyms

a. 1. Showy, ostentatious, stately, lofty, grand, majestic, magnificent, superb, splendid, august, magisterial, dignified. 2. Swelling, inflated, bombastic, turgid, pretentious, stilted, boastful, grandiloquent, high-flowing, high-sounding, high-flown, ostentatious, tumid, grandiose, magniloquent, flaunting, puffy.

Moby Thesaurus

Gongoresque, Johnsonian, Latinate, affected, arrogant, assured, aureate, awkward, bedizened, big-sounding, bloated, boastful, bombastic, braggart, ceremonial, ceremonious, cocksure, conceited, confident, conventional, convinced, convoluted, cramped, cumbrous, decided, declamatory, decorous, determined, egotistical, elephantine, elevated, embroidered, euphuistic, exhibitionist, flamboyant, flaming, flashy, flatulent, flaunting, flossy, flowery, forced, formal, fulsome, fustian, garish, gassy, gaudy, grandiloquent, grandiose, grandisonant, guinde, halting, haughty, heavy, hieratic, high-flowing, high-flown, high-flying, high-hat, high-sounding, highfalutin, hoity-toity, hubristic, imperious, important, inflated, inkhorn, labored, labyrinthine, leaden, lexiphanic, liturgic, lofty, lumbering, lurid, magisterial, magniloquent, meretricious, narcissistic, ornate, orotund, ostentatious, overbearing, overblown, overconfident, overdone, overelaborate, overinvolved, oversure, overweening, overwrought, pedantic, persuaded, poised, ponderous, pontifical, positive, presumptuous, pretentious, proud, puffy, reassured, rhetorical, ritual, ritualistic, sacerdotal, secure, self-assured, self-centered, self-conceited, self-confident, self-important, self-reliant, selfish, sensational, sensationalistic, sententious, sesquipedalian, showy, snobbish, snooty, snotty, solemn, sonorous, stately, stiff, stilted, stuck-up, stuffy, sure, swollen, tall, tortuous, tumid, turgid, unafraid, undoubting, unfaltering, unhesitating, unwavering, unwieldy, uppity, vain, vainglorious, well-mannered, windy