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Pompous vs Cocksure - What's the difference?

pompous | cocksure |

As adjectives the difference between pompous and cocksure

is that pompous is affectedly grand, solemn or self-important while cocksure is (informal) too confident; overconfident.

pompous

English

Adjective

(en adjective)
  • Affectedly grand, solemn or self-important.
  • * 1848, , Bantam Classics (1997), 16:
    • "Not that the parting speech caused Amelia to philosophise, or that it armed her in any way with a calmness, the result of argument; but it was intolerably dull, pompous , and tedious; and having the fear of her schoolmistress greatly before her eyes, Miss Sedley did not venture, in her presence, to give way to any ebullitions of private grief."

    Synonyms

    * conceited * smug * See also

    Antonyms

    * humble * modest * self-effacing

    Related terms

    * pomp * pomposity * pompously

    External links

    * * *

    cocksure

    English

    Adjective

    (en adjective)
  • (informal) too confident; overconfident
    • I thought myself cocksure of the horse which he readily promised me. — Alexander Pope.
  • * 1906 , John Galsworthy,
    • The persistence of the Past is one of those tragicomic blessings which each new age denies, coming cocksure on to the stage to mouth its claim to a perfect novelty.
  • *1920 , Sinclair Lewis, The Main Street ,
  • *:These crack specialists, the young scientific fellows, they're so cocksure and so wrapped up in their laboratories that they miss the human element.