arch. [f. prec. sb., which see for pronunciation: in the vb. the accent is more frequently on the final syllable.]
† 1. To stuff, pad, or fill out with cotton-wool, or the like. Obs.
1565. Jewel, Repl. Harding (1611), To Rdr. 2. To couer the smalnesse … of their bodies, [he] had bomebasted, and embossed out their contes.
1576. Gascoigne, Steele Gl., Epil. 82. [They] bumbast, bolster, frisle and perfume.
1650. Bulwer, Anthropomet., xvi. 162. They bumbast their Doublets.
1820. Scott, Abbot, xv. My stomach has no room for it; it is … too well bumbasted out with straw and buckram.
2. fig. and transf. To stuff, swell out, inflate.
1566. Studley, Seneca’s Medea (1581), 136. Her hawty breast bumbasted is wyth pryde.
1599. Nashe, Lenten Stuffe (1871), 58. The first should have his gut bombasted with beef.
1607. Chapman, Bussy D’Amb., Plays, 1873, II. 43. A great man … that by his greatnesse Bumbasts his private roofes, with public riches.
1624. T. Scott, Vox Dei, 68. A place and people that … bombasted their reputations with the winde of complement.
1633. Heywood, Eng. Trav., Prol. Not so much … As Song, Dance, Masque, to bumbaste out a Play.
1822. Southey, in Q. Rev., XXVII. 34. The want of incidents … he has endeavoured to supply by invention, and in bombasting the fable with machinery.
b. To swell out, render grandiose (a speech or literary composition) with bombastic language.
1573. R. Scot, Hop Gard. (1578), Epist. Not bumbasting the same with the figures and flowers of eloquence.
1599. Bp. Hall, Sat., I. iv. 9. Then strives he to bumbast his feeble lines With farre-fetcht phrase.
1603. Florio, Montaigne, I. xxv. (1632), 83. That doth … bumbast his labours with high swelling and heaven-disimbowelling words.
