Bombast. Now inflated diction, words which, sounding lofty and big, have no real substance about them. This, which is now the sole meaning, was once only the secondary and the figurative, ‘bombast’ being literally the cotton wadding with which garments are stuffed out and lined, and often so used by our writers of the Elizabethan period, and then by a vigorous image transferred to what now it exclusively means.
Certain I am there was never any kind of apparel ever invented, that could more disproportion the body of man than these doublets, stuffed with four, five, or six pound of bombast at the least.—Stubbes, Anatomy of Abuses, p. 23.
We have received your letters full of love!
Your favours, the ambassadors of love;
And, in our maiden council, rated them
At courtship, pleasant jest, and courtesy,
As bombast, and as lining to the time.
Shakespeare, Love’s Labour’s Lost, act v. sc. 2.
Bombast, the cotton-plant growing in Asia.—Phillips, New World of Words.
Boot. Not the luggage, but the attendants, used once to ride in the ‘boot,’ or rather the boots, of a carriage, for there were two. Projecting from the sides of the carriage and open to the air, they derived, no doubt, their name from their shape.