Full of or characterized by pomp or showy display; ostentatiously grand, dignified, or magnificent; splendid; stately: as, a pompous triumph; a pompous procession.
Exhibiting self-importance or an exaggerated sense of dignity; ostentatiously dignified or self-important; lofty: as, a pompous style; pompous in manners.
Synonyms Superb, grand, august, lofty, dignified.—
Magisterial, swelling, inflated, bom bastic, grandiloquent, pretentious. That which gives pompous its distinctive character among these words and the words used in defining it is the idea of the display of magnificence for the sake of enhancing, properly or improperly, the dignity, etc., of the person or thing most concerned. A pompous procession gives dignity to a person thus welcomed to a city; a pompous deportment or manner of speech arises from the feeling of one's own importance and the effort to seem what one thinks himself to be. Pompous is used in a good sense now only when applied to public ceremonies or celebrations or the ways of courts.