Adjective

"There are no crimes and no criminals in these days," he said, querulously. "What is the use of having brains in our profession. I know well that I have it in me to make my name famous. No man lives or has ever lived who has brought the same amount of study and of natural talent to the detection of crime which I have done. And what is the result? There is no crime to detect, or, at most, some bungling villainy with a motive so transparent that even a Scotland Yard official can see through it." I was still annoyed at his bumptious style of conversation; I thought it best to change the topic.

From another point of view, it was a place without a soul. The well-to-do had hearts of stone; the rich were brutally bumptious ; the Press, the Municipality, all the public men, were ridiculously, vaingloriously self-satisfied.

She could stand it no longer. It was full of prying old women, she said, who stared in one's face, and of bumptious young men who trod on one's toes.

Adjective

there is no reason but if any of the outlawries be indeed without error, but it should be a peremptory plea to the person in a writ of error, as well as in any other action.

He marched under a placard reading "End Bossiness Now" but decided it was a little too peremptory , not quite British, so changed the slogan on subsequent badges, to "End Bossiness Soon."

less surprising than that he had been depressed by a book. Something was making him nibble at the edge of stale ideas as if his sturdy physical egotism no longer nourished his peremptory heart.

Though today (surveying that yellowing document) I shudder at the peremptory tone of the instructions I gave, Alastair - in that same volume in which I get chastised for my coverage of the Macmillan rally - was generous enough to remark that my memorandum became 'an office classic'.