grandiloquent

[ gran-dil-uh-kwuhnt ]

adjective

1. speaking or expressed in a lofty style, often to the point of being pompous or bombastic.

   Synonyms: pretentious, rhetorical, inflated, turgid

   Antonyms: sincere, simple

grandiloquent

/ ɡrænˈdɪləkwənt /

adjective

1. inflated, pompous, or bombastic in style or expression

Derived Forms

• granˈdiloquence, noun
• granˈdiloquently, adverb

Other Words From

• gran·dilo·quent·ly adverb

Word History and Origins

Origin of grandiloquent¹

First recorded in 1585–95; grandiloqu(ence) + -ent

Word History and Origins

Origin of grandiloquent¹

C16: from Latin grandiloquus, from grandis great + loquī to speak

Example Sentences

A member of his own party mocked his “grandiloquent swell” and “turkey-gobbler strut.”

From Washington Post

In 2014, this might sound grandiloquent and overstated, but in 1994 there were few openly gay men on TV, and few people with AIDS.

From The Daily Beast

Yet a moment like this seems so overblown, so grandiloquent, and so self-consciously heroic that it simply stuns me.

From The Daily Beast

And then there was the grandiloquent Republican leader Everett Dirksen.

From The Daily Beast

A celebrity whose egocentric and grandiloquent pronouncements reveal a potentially dangerous person in serious need of help?

From The Daily Beast

Note as well their wily use of the word "stuff"—a bit of vernacular so the message doesn't get too grandiloquent.

From The Daily Beast

I was unanimously recalled, and—to be grandiloquent—received with applause that made the welkin ring.

From Project Gutenberg

Just off the main square we secured quarters in a typical French inn of the second class, a small place with a grandiloquent name.

From Project Gutenberg

This relative of his, with his plausible and grandiloquent schemes, stood revealed a bankrupt swindler of the worst type.

From Project Gutenberg

If called on to prove his power, this grandiloquent Satan would turn out, I fear, to be a sorry thaumaturgist.

From Project Gutenberg

Friedrich has still his hopes of Bavaria, so grandiloquent are the French in regard to it; who but would hope?

From Project Gutenberg