The story
- Ancient Greek · derived fromβόμβος“buzzing, booming”
- English todaybomphiologia
Coined by Richard Sherry in his 1550 Treatise of Schemes & Tropes as the Greek equivalent of Latin verborum bombus (“booming of words”). From Ancient Greek βόμβος (bómbos, “buzzing, booming”) + perhaps φημί (phēmí, “to speak”) or a play on bombast. The -logia suffix suggests "the speaking of booming words".
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.