Standard Lemma guide
Definitions and examples are grouped by meaning. Pronunciation, history, word forms, translations, descendants, synonyms, antonyms, derived terms, and related words appear whenever the source provides them.
Sound
Each Play button uses your device's default local English voice, or a natural local fallback. The selected voice name appears after playback. This is synthesized speech, not a source recording.
No pronunciation record was provided for this word.
noun
Exaggeration done in a self-aggrandizing manner, as a braggart; pompous, bombastic speech wherein small or trivial things are described with great, gasping words.
Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract
Usage: rhetoric, uncountable
No example sentence was provided for this meaning.
Synonyms: none provided
Antonyms: none provided
History
Coined by Richard Sherry in his 1550 Treatise of Schemes & Tropes as the Greek equivalent of Latin verborum bombus (“booming of words”). From Ancient Greek βόμβος (bómbos, “buzzing, booming”) + perhaps φημί (phēmí, “to speak”) or a play on bombast. The -logia suffix suggests "the speaking of booming words".
