• BAHM-bast • noun
: pretentious inflated speech or writing
[Ro] stil bombastic; bombasticism; (despre vorbe, stil etc.; adesea adverbial) caracter umflat, emfatic, pretenţios.
Exemplu în context:
Laura complained that the editorial columns in her local newspaper were full of bombast and offered little in the way of intelligent opinion.
Laura s-a plâns că rubricile editoriale în ziarul local erau pline de emfază şi ofereau puţine idei inteligente.
The original meaning of bombast (now obsolete) is cotton or any soft fibrous material used as padding or stuffing. It is derived through Middle French bombace, from Medieval Latin bombax, which means cotton. Bombax in turn comes from bombyx, a Latin and ultimately Greek word that means silkworm or silk. Etymologists aren’t certain why the shift from silk to cotton occurred. Bombast has been retained in modern English because it took on a figurative sense used in reference to speech or writing.
