Bombastically

Part of speech: adverb

Definitions

1. In a style that employs elaborate language or exaggerated rhetoric, typically overemphasizing the significance of a point to create an impression of importance
2. Through the use of ostentatiously worded expressions that prioritize flair over substance, often to appear grander than the situation warrants
3. In a manner characterized by pompous language and inflated expressions that seek to impress rather than convey genuine meaning

Etymology: Bombastically takes its shape from "bombastic," which itself comes from "bombast," a word that originally named cotton wadding. Cotton was called "bombace" in Old French and Medieval Latin "bombax," and stuffing a garment with it padded it out. The sense of inflated, padded language came later, when "bombast" came to describe speech and writing swollen with more volume than content, much as the stuffed cloth bulked up a doublet without adding anything solid. The adverb is simply the adjective "bombastic" with the English suffix "-ally," the form used to make adverbs from adjectives ending in "-ic." That suffix descends from Old English "-līce," a word meaning "in the manner of," which Middle English shortened to "-ly." The "-ally" ending is the "-al" plus "-ly" combination that appears when an adjective ends in "-ic."

Synonyms: extravagantly, grandiloquently

Antonyms: simply, plainly