Meaning & use
fustian
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Meanings
noununcountableliterarydisapproving
Speech or writing that sounds grand and important but is empty or overblown.
Grammar: Uncountable: the speech was pure fustian, not a fustian.
Patterns
- full of fustian
The politician's speech was fustian, full of big words and no ideas.
He dismissed the poem as pompous fustian.
Strip away the fustian and the article has little to say.
noununcountablearchaicspecialist
A thick, hard-wearing cloth made of cotton and flax, once used for work clothes.
Grammar: Uncountable and mostly used in historical writing about clothing.
Patterns
- clothes of fustian
The workers wore jackets of rough fustian.
Fustian was cheap and strong, so laborers favored it.
The museum has a fustian coat from the nineteenth century.
adjectivebefore a nounliterarydisapproving
Pretentious and bombastic in style, using lofty language for little purpose.
Grammar: Appears before a noun: a fustian speech.
The review mocked the fustian prose of the novel.
His fustian manner irritated the audience.
She avoided fustian language and spoke plainly.
Common combinations
- pompous fustian
- The article was pompous fustian.
- fustian prose
- The fustian prose made the book hard to read.
- a speech full of fustian
- It was a speech full of fustian.
- fustian language
- The report was written in fustian language.
- strip away the fustian
- Strip away the fustian and the argument is thin.
Synonyms and how they differ
- bombast
- Bombast is the nearest and more common word for inflated, showy speech.
- pomposity
- Pomposity describes a self-important manner, not necessarily the words themselves.
- rant
- A rant is loud and angry, whereas fustian is grand and empty.
- grandiloquence
- Grandiloquence is a more formal word for lofty speech, and it is not always negative.
Opposites
Word family
Commonly confused: fustian or fusty?
fustian vs fusty
Fusty means stale or old-fashioned, such as a musty smell, and it is unrelated to fustian.
Practice
The critic complained that the speech was all ___ and no real argument.
Choose one answer.
Fustian means overblown language with little meaning. Fusty describes a stale smell, so it does not fit the context.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “fustian”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.