Word of the Day Archive
Monday May 5, 2008
fustian \FUHS-chuhn\ , noun:
1. A kind of coarse twilled cotton or cotton and linen stuff, including corduroy, velveteen, etc.
2. An inflated style of writing or speech; pompous or pretentious language.
adjective:
1. Made of fustian.
2. Pompous; ridiculously inflated; bombastic.
Don't squander the court's patience puffing your cheeks up on stately bombast and lofty fustian. Speak plainly!
-- Richard Dooling, Brain Storm
His stated motive is to meet "the flood of cant, fustian and emotional nonsense which pollutes the intellectual atmosphere."
-- Walter H. Waggoner, "Joseph W. Bishop Jr., Law Professor and Author", New York Times, May 21, 1985
It would take a stout heart to read through all the loyal effusions and fustian birthday odes of the 18th-century laureates -- Nahum Tate, Colley Cibber and the rest.
-- John Gross, "In Search of a Laureate: Making Book on Britain's Next Official Poet", New York Times, July 15, 1984
Fustian derives from Old French fustaigne, from Medieval Latin fustaneum, but its precise roots beyond that point are uncertain.
Dictionary.com Entry and Pronunciation for fustian
