bombastic

the word 'bombastic' originates from the greek 'bómbux', referring to silk or the silkworm. this term passed into latin as 'bombax' for cotton, and into old french as 'bombace', denoting cotton wool used for padding or stuffing. the english noun 'bombast' thus came to mean the cotton padding used to stuff garments, creating a puffed-up appearance. by the late 16th century, this literal sense of inflated material was applied metaphorically to speech or writing that is inflated with grandiose but empty words, giving us the modern adjective meaning pretentiously pompous.

Structure: bombast (cotton padding) + ic (adjective suffix) bombast (from old french 'bombace', meaning cotton or cotton wadding, ultimately from latin 'bombax', cotton, from greek 'bómbux', silk/silkworm). ic (adjective-forming suffix, from latin '-icus', greek '-ikos').