Meanings
plural pomposities
- The quality of being pompous; self-importance.
With their super-formal tone and heavy use of jargon, legal documents are renowned for their pomposity.
1 more example
In death Sir Felix changed from a smug-scented pomposity with a Stalinist grip on Arts Council money into, oh, Britain’s best-loved arts guru since the last one.
2004, David Mitchell, “The Ghastly Ordeal of Timothy Cavendish”, in Cloud Atlas, London: Sceptre (Hodder and Stoughton), →ISBN, page 151Synonyms: bombast, ostentatiousness, pompousness
Synonyms & antonyms
nounThe quality of being pompous; self-importance.
More synonyms by meaning
nounlack of elegance as a consequence of being pompous and puffed up with vanity
Synonym sets from Open English WordNet, CC BY 4.0.
Origin
- Latinpompōsitās
- Middle Englishpomposite“solemnity”
- Englishpomposity
From Middle English pomposite (“solemnity”), from Latin pompōsitās. By surface analysis, pomp + -osity.
More words from Middle English, Latin
Full word history & related roots →Translations
Bulgarian надутост
- надутост (nadutost)quality
Catalan pompositat
- pompositatquality
Finnish pompöösiys, mahtipontisuus
- pompöösiysquality
- mahtipontisuusquality
- suurellisuusquality
French pompe
- pompequality
Irish mórchúis
- mórchúisquality
Portuguese pomposidade
- pomposidadequality
Spanish prosopopeya, pomposidad
- prosopopeyaquality
- pomposidadquality
Swedish pompösitet
- pompösitetquality
Cite this entry
pomposity. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 2, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/pomposity
“pomposity.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/pomposity. Accessed November 2, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “pomposity,” accessed November 2, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/pomposity.
Source: pomposity on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.