a. Obs. [f. TYMPAN-UM or TYMPAN-Y + -OUS.] Swollen as with a tympany; usually fig. inflated, puffed up; turgid, bombastic; hollow, empty, vain.
1624. Middleton, Game at Chess, II. i. His proud tympanous master, swell’d with state-wind.
1635. Heywood, Hierarch., IV. 208. A Puny shall assume the name of Poet; And in a Tympanous and Thrasonicke stile [etc.].
1648. Symmons, Vind. Chas. I., p. ii. Those new hopes being likely to prove tympanous.
1660. Waterhouse, Arms & Arm., 26. That tympanous humour that swells up … light minds.
1669. Cokaine, Poems, 164. Her tympanous belly.
