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View synonyms for grandiose

grandiose

[ gran-dee-ohs, gran-dee-ohs ]

adjective

  1. affectedly grand or important; pompous:

    grandiose words.

    Synonyms: extravagant, high-flown, splashy, flamboyant, affected, pretentious

  2. more complicated or elaborate than necessary; overblown:

    a grandiose scheme.

  3. grand in an imposing or impressive way.
  4. Psychiatry. having an exaggerated belief in one's importance, sometimes reaching delusional proportions, and occurring as a common symptom of mental illnesses, as manic disorder.


grandiose

/ ˌɡrændɪˈɒsɪtɪ; ˈɡrændɪˌəʊs /

adjective

  1. pretentiously grand or stately
  2. imposing in conception or execution


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Derived Forms

  • grandiosity, noun
  • ˈgrandiˌosely, adverb

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Other Words From

  • gran·di·ose·ly adverb
  • gran·di·ose·ness gran·di·os·i·ty [gran-dee-, os, -i-tee], noun

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Word History and Origins

Origin of grandiose1

First recorded in 1830–40; from French, from Italian grandioso, from Latin grandi(s) “grand” + -ōsus adjective suffix ( -ose 1 )

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Word History and Origins

Origin of grandiose1

C19: from French, from Italian grandioso, from grande great; see grand

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Synonym Study

Grandiose, showy, ostentatious, pretentious all refer to conspicuous outward display, either designed to attract attention or likely to do so. Grandiose and showy are alike in that they may suggest impressiveness that is not objectionable: the grandiose sweep of the arch; a fresh bouquet of showy zinnias. Grandiose, however, most often implies inflation or exaggeration to the point of absurdity: grandiose, impractical plans; a ridiculously grandiose manner. Showy sometimes suggests a meretricious gaudiness or flashiness: a showy taste in dress. Ostentatious, which refers to behavior or manner clearly designed to impress, also has negative connotations: an ostentatious display of wealth; an assumption of superiority too ostentatious to be ignored. Pretentious, like the preceding term, is always derogatory, implying falseness or exaggeration in claims made or implied: natural and straightforward, not pretentious; pretentious language designed to mask the absence of real content.

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Example Sentences

Saints running back Alvin Kamara tests positive for coronavirus, could miss first playoff gamePlanning is proceeding for a Super Bowl that will be conducted in far less grandiose fashion than those in previous years.

At times, Musk has given grandiose presentations of the rocket and his plans to one day build a city on Mars.

Data show their grandiose plans do not boost a company’s performance.

From Quartz

Rather than compete with grandiose ambitions, their websites reference each other and connect voters to secretaries of state and election registrars around the nation.

From Fortune

For what is clear throughout this research is that it is substance that counts the most, not grandiose plans or powerful rhetoric.

From Fortune

I suspect he chose the Dred Scott comparison precisely because of its overblown, grandiose nature.

Months after his arrest, he was online acting out a grandiose identity.

Talking about the watch as a new kind of communication might seem grandiose, but it could actually be true.

It did not feature outsized personalities or grandiose schemes.

Songs about grandiose generalities are well and good; that's what a lot of pop music consists of.

Was it for some grandiose, impossible chimera, that he had taken men from quiet useful lives and the simple round of kindliness?

Within sixty seconds he sat in state, wearing a grandiose yellow dressing-gown.

She really had the heroical aspect in a grandiose-grotesque, fitted to some lines of Ariosto.

The llano had appeared to them in its grandiose majesty, and a cry of delight had burst from breasts so long oppressed by fear.

It has been called fairylike, a caprice of grandiose ideas, and enchanted, and these words describe it well enough.

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