grandiloquize
Language: English
Part of speech: verb
Forms: form: grandiloquizes
form: grandiloquizing
form: grandiloquized
form: grandiloquized
form: grandiloquise
Senses: examples: text: Il Riscatto dell’ Italia takes a high flight, and grandiloquizes on the past abjectness and present glory of Italy; whilst the Costituzione and the Costituzionale walk on earth, and advocate moderation in the exercise of a boon which has been granted by the loving Ferdinand to his “amatissimi sudditi.”
ref: 1848 February 26, “[Foreign Correspondence.] The Press at Naples.”, in The Athenæum: Journal of English and Foreign Literature, Science, and the Fine Arts, number 1061, London, page 215, column 3:
text: Jean Paul ingeniously explained that when we laugh at the stupidity of other people, it is only because we have imputed, or as he says “loaned,” to them our insight, and thus in them been able to perceive the contrast between a minimum and a maximum of such insight. His metaphysical grandiloquizing upon the terms sublime and ridiculous, infinitely little and infinitely great, is fruitless of true meaning, and that I suppose was the essence of its emotional value.
ref: 1921, Max Eastman, “The Discovery of Benign Humor”, in The Sense of Humor, New York, N.Y.: Charles Scribner’s Sons, page 169:
text: After listening to Adolf Hitler grandiloquizing about “spheres of influence,” Molotov silenced him by asking all at once: “What’s this about a new order in Europe? And in Asia? What role is the U.S.S.R. going to play? What about Bulgaria? Rumania? Turkey? How shall Russian interests be preserved in the Balkans?”
ref: 1953 April 20, “International”, in Time: The Weekly Newsmagazine, volume LXI, number 16, Chicago, Ill.: Time Inc., page 32, column 3:
text: Being at the Buccellatis was always such a bore since the place seemed to attract egos stroking beards. There was always a false kind of energy, people hyped on liquor and self-glorification, swelled with self-importance, grandiloquizing around the table, stirring up discussions for the sake of hearing themselves sound impressive, each one essentially saying either nothing or else arguing the same point of view without being aware that he was agreeing with the other, because no one ever listened to anyone else anyway.
ref: 1972, Jeanne Rejaunier, The Motion and The Act, Los Angeles, Calif.: Nash Publishing, →ISBN, page 130:
text: Burch stammers, “Er, well, you see, that is . . .” He grandiloquizes, “As per our discussion, be that as it may, we must prioritize, let’s have lunch.” He says, “Abba dee, abba dee, that’s all folks,” and pretends he has forgotten how to speak English.
ref: 1991, Mark Silber, “Lite in August”, in Dean Faulkner Wells, editor, The Best of Bad Faulkner: Choice Entries from the Faux Faulkner Competition […], San Diego, Calif.: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, →ISBN, page 27:
text: The stress testing continues as couplet after couplet grandiloquizes on pre- and post-Trojan Rome (1–56), postponing the autographic pronouns and verbs that finally herald the poet’s statement of intent (57–70): moenia namque pio conor disponere uersu. ei mihi quod nostro est paruus in ore sonus! sed tamen exiguo quodcumque e pectore riui fluxerit, hoc patriae seruiet omne meae. […] For my task is to set out walls in pious verse. Ah, that the sound in my mouth is small! But nevertheless, whatever rivulet flows from my slender breast, all of it will serve my fatherland.
ref: 2014, Donncha O’Rourke, “Paratext and intertext in the Propertian poetry book”, in Laura Jansen, editor, The Roman Paratext: Frame, Texts, Readers, Cambridge, Cambs.: Cambridge University Press, →ISBN, page 159:
glosses: To speak in a grandiloquent manner.
examples: text: Every now and then, in the cowslip season, her ladyship used to be taken rural, and “babble of green fields.” She would sigh over the advertisements of the auctioneers, grandiloquizing the glories of Richmond Hill or the beauties of Shenley, till “the greenth and gloomth” of Horace Walpole were outdone.
ref: 1841, [Catherine Gore], chapter VIII, in Cecil: or, The Adventures of a Coxcomb. […], volume I, Philadelphia, Pa.: Lea and Blanchard, page 131:
text: Our next resting place bears the sounding name of the “Plinlimmon Hotel,” a small way-side hostel at Eisteddfa Gurrig, so grandiloquized; and hence, procuring a guide, the summit of the hoary mountain is generally ascended.
ref: 1844, Thomas Roscoe, “Phinlimmon—Llangurig—Rhaiadyr—New Radnor”, in Wanderings and Excursions in South Wales: With the Scenery of the River Wye. […], London: Longman; Simpkin; Bogue; Orr. […], page 57:
text: At this time of writing, our American democracy is principally concerned with the so-called “agricultural problem.” The word “problem” is in itself objectionable, as begging the question that there is a problem at all. Any class that is dissatisfied, any trade that demands a larger share of the return, grandiloquizes its position by calling the thing a “problem.” Usually it is only a condition, oftentimes a necessary state.
ref: 1929, Frederic Jesup Stimson, “Social Questions”, in The Western Way: The Accomplishment and Future of Modern Democracy, New York, N.Y.; London: Charles Scribner’s Sons, page 345:
text: Describing the stock-in-trade of a newsboy, he grandiloquizes his plebeian métier into something rich and Marlovian: / For him the mitred cardinals sweat in / Conclaves domed; the spy is shot. Empiric; / And obstreperous confidant of kings, / Rude despiser of the anonymous, / Danubes of blood wash up his bulletins . . .
ref: 1978, A[braham] M[oses] Klein, “Review of Here and Now (1945)”, in Seymour Mayne, editor, Irving Layton: The Poet and His Critics (Critical Views on Canadian Writers), Toronto, Ont.: McGraw-Hill Ryerson Limited, →ISBN, page 24:
text: Or one may hover, awed and respectful, between belief and unbelief. After all, if Caesar had not defied augury and overcome his superstition with some rather bombastic self-grandiloquizing (‘Danger knows full well/That Caesar is more dangerous than he . . . Caesar shall go forth’ – II, ii, 45, 48) he might well have lived to fight – and be crowned – another day.
ref: 1993, Tony Tanner, “Introduction”, in Sylvan Barnet, editor, Tragedies (Everyman’s Library), volume 2, New York, N.Y.; Toronto, Ont.: Alfred A. Knopf, →ISBN, page xlv:
glosses: To describe (something) in terms that exaggerate its importance or impressiveness.