pompouslyadv.
/ˈpɒmpəsli/, U.S. /ˈpɑmpəsli/ 1. With pomp or splendour; magnificently; in state. Now rare (chiefly archaic in later use).
ΘΚΠ
the mind > attention and judgement > beauty > splendour > [adverb] > magnificently
micklelyeOE
proudlya1225
noblyc1300
reallya1375
riallya1387
royallyc1405
rialc1425
stately?a1439
pompously1501
gorgeously1532
magnificly1538
princely1548
magnificentlya1552
magnifically1555
superbiously1569
grandly1647
splendidly1651
magnificously1683
superbly1763
grandiosely1841
splendiferously1841
regally1852
splendaciously1872
1501 in J. Gairdner Lett. Reigns of Richard III & Henry VII (1861) I. App. A. 417 Their barges..weale and pompously rigged and addressed.
a1522 G. Douglas tr. Virgil Æneid xi. ii. 53 And bad thai suld tak gud kepe and attend, To leid the pray per ordour pompusly.
1596 T. Lodge Margarite of Amer. sig. M Their horses, were all pompously garnished with golde and siluer.
1620 tr. G. Boccaccio Decameron I. ii. vii. f. 60v Dispatching a worthy trayne to fetch her, she was conueyed thither very pompously.
1681 J. Crown Thyestes iv. iv. 37 (stage direct.) Enter Atreus pompously attended.
1737 Chamberlayne's Magnæ Britanniæ Notitia (ed. 33) i. iii. 275 The Benefactor's Body having been pompously buried before in Barbados, was yet..brought over.
1846 C. Dickens Pictures from Italy 115 A splendid barge in which its ancient chief had gone forth, pompously..to wed the ocean, lay here.
1887 H. Morley Eng. Writers (ed. 2) II. ii. 25 Though his born brother..Bury him pompously.
1917 L. Carnovale Why Italy entered Great War i. xiii. 61 [He] invaded Tuscany; raided towns, despoiled and abused the populace; then suddenly and pompously entered Florence.
2. In negative sense: with excessive show, ostentatiously; with affected or inflated dignity or self-importance; arrogantly, sententiously; grandiloquently.
ΘΚΠ
the mind > emotion > pride > pomposity > [adverb]
biglya1475
pompously1573
pontifically1582
budgely1599
pompous1754
largely1857
burlily1863
portentously1892
portentiously1963
1573 J. Bridges Supremacie Christian Princes 1017 It is not my purpose to inuade any man with Armes, or after the manner of other Kings, to raigne pompously: but to erecte and establishe in earth, the Diuine truth.
1583 P. Stubbes Anat. Abuses sig. Cv We ought rather to walke meanelye, and simplye, than gorgiously, or pompously.
1680 H. More Apocalypsis Apocalypseos xviii. 183 How much she has glorified her self, and lived deliciously; that is, magnified her self, or boasted of her self, and lived pompously and luxuriously.
1718 Mem. Life J. Kettlewell iii. li. 318 Preferring Truth and Righteousness to all other Considerations how Pompiously soever set off.
1760 L. Sterne Life Tristram Shandy II. xvii. 134 Let him declaim as pompously as he chooses upon the subject.
1777 H. L. Thrale Diary 26 Nov. in Thraliana (1942) I. 174 Why says I to be sure the Master does talk pompously of some Things that you despise, as Gardening for example.
1847 C. Brontë Jane Eyre I. viii. 125 This charge which Mr. Brocklehurst has weakly and pompously repeated at second hand.
1883 R. L. Stevenson Silverado Squatters 260 I cannot see why the American Dictionary should be so pompously entitled Unabridged: abridgment seems all the game.
1920 F. S. Fitzgerald This Side of Paradise ii. v. 280 He loathed knowing that to-morrow and the thousand days after he would swell pompously at a compliment and sulk at an ill word.
1937 D. G. Creighton Commerc. Empire St Lawrence ii. 25 This ‘rectangular parallelogram’, as Peter Kalm somewhat pompously called it, was surrounded by fortifications.
1996 Independent 17 Oct. ii. 10/2 He pompously led around a posse of medical students while expounding to them on all the conditions from which I..could be suffering.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, December 2006; most recently modified version published online March 2022).
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adv.1501