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Bombast vs Bluster - What's the difference?

bombast | bluster | Synonyms |

Bluster is a synonym of bombast.



As nouns the difference between bombast and bluster

is that bombast is originally, cotton, or cotton wool while bluster is pompous, officious talk.

As verbs the difference between bombast and bluster

is that bombast is to swell or fill out; to pad; to inflate while bluster is to speak or protest loudly.

As an adjective bombast

is high-sounding; inflated; big without meaning; magniloquent; bombastic.

bombast

English

Noun

  • Originally, cotton, or cotton wool.
  • * Lupton
    • a candle with a wick of bombast
  • Cotton, or any soft, fibrous material, used as stuffing for garments; stuffing; padding.
  • * Shakespeare
    • How now, my sweet creature of bombast !
  • * Stubbes
    • doublets, stuffed with four, five, or six pounds of bombast at least
  • (figuratively) High-sounding words; a pompous or ostentatious manner of writing or speaking; language above the dignity of the occasion.
  • * Dryden
    • Yet noisy bombast carefully avoid.
  • *

    • Synonyms

    * (cotton or cotton wool) fustian * (high-sounding words) bombard phrase (obs.) , fustian, grandiloquence

    Verb

    (en verb)
  • To swell or fill out; to pad; to inflate.
  • * {{quote-book, year=1839, author=Samuel Taylor Coleridge, title=Coleridge's Literary Remains, Volume 4., chapter=, edition= citation
    • , passage=Ib. Their doctrine is to be seen in Jacob Behmen's books by him that hath nothing else to do, than to bestow a great deal of time to understand him that was not willing to be easily understood, and to know that his bombasted words do signify nothing more than before was easily known by common familiar terms. }}

    Adjective

    (en adjective)
  • High-sounding; inflated; big without meaning; magniloquent; bombastic.
  • * Shakespeare
    • [He] evades them with a bombast circumstance, / Horribly stuffed with epithets of war.
  • * Cowley
    • Nor a tall metaphor in bombast way.

    bluster

    English

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • Pompous, officious talk.
  • * {{quote-magazine, date=2013-06-22, volume=407, issue=8841, page=70, magazine=(The Economist)
    • , title= Engineers of a different kind , passage=Private-equity nabobs bristle at being dubbed mere financiers. Piling debt onto companies’ balance-sheets is only a small part of what leveraged buy-outs are about, they insist. Improving the workings of the businesses they take over is just as core to their calling, if not more so. Much of their pleading is public-relations bluster .}}
  • A gust of wind.
  • Fitful noise and violence.

    • Synonyms

    * (pompous talk) bombast

    Verb

  • To speak or protest loudly.
    • When confronted by opposition his reaction was to bluster , which often cowed the meek.
  • To act or speak in an unduly threatening manner.
  • * Burke
    • Your ministerial directors blustered like tragic tyrants.
  • * Sir T. More
    • He bloweth and blustereth out his abominable blasphemy.
  • * Fuller
    • As if therewith he meant to bluster all princes into a perfect obedience to his commands.
  • To blow in strong or sudden gusts.
  • * Milton
    • And ever-threatening storms / Of Chaos blustering round.

    Derived terms

    * blusterer * blustering * blusterous * blustery

    Anagrams

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