grandiloquist

grandiloquist noun: someone who is grandiloquent, especially one who makes a living by giving lectures.

Noun

grandiloquist (plural grandiloquists)

(rare) Someone who is grandiloquent, especially one who makes a living by giving lectures.
- Neither do the public concern themselves how he adjuts his oratorical visage to help by his powers of face; nor heed, whether as a grandiloquist he harangues to us out of the clouds; or as a ventriloquist, out of his belly.[…]he unwittingly exhibits the real dimensions of his capacity, for, good...1838, George Merryweather, “Sir Robert Peel’s Oratory”, in Kings, the Devil’s Viceroys and Representatives on Earth, pages 296–298
- Nevertheless, when it came to personal practice and example, nothing can be more manifest than that the great current of his sympathies was with the refining grandiloquists who flourished in the time of the Charleses.1874 October, Fitzedward Hall, “The Sources of Standard English. By T. L. Kington Oliphant, M. A., of Balliol College, Oxford. London. 1873.”, in The North American Review, volume CXIX, number CCXLV...

grandiloquist (comparative more grandiloquist, superlative most grandiloquist)

(rare) grandiloquent; bombastic.
- The language is a little too grandiloquist perhaps, but the subject bears it out.1838, George Merryweather, “Sir Robert Peel’s Oratory”, in Kings, the Devil’s Viceroys and Representatives on Earth, published by the author, page 295
- The contempt of that large-minded gentleman (Mr. Roscoe Conkling) is so wilting; his haughty disdain, his grandiloquist swell, his majestic, supereminent, overpowering, turkey-gobbler strut has been so crushing to myself and all the members of this house that I know it was an act of the greatest...1884 June 7, “Blaine and Conkling”, in The Buffalo Daily Times, number 231, column 3

But Sir Robert must shine as something grand, be it only as a grandiloquist.1838, George Merryweather, “Sir Robert Peel’s Oratory”, in Kings, the Devil’s Viceroys and Representatives on Earth, pages 296–298:
Bill O’Neal is a professional grandiloquist.1879 February 6, “Bodenham”, in The Pulaski Citizen, volume 21, number 6, Pulaski, Tenn., column 8:
F. left immediately for Omaha to consult a grandiloquist to select a name commensurate for the case and the following was received by wire: “Arternus Alvarado, Don Raymon, De Aarsus Turnus McDannel.1903 June 5, “Giltner”, in The Aurora Sun, volume XVII, number 929, Aurora, Neb., page 7, column 2:
When metaphors vault and infinitives do the splits, / When predicates stumble and a verb masquerades as a noun, / The writer may not be out of his wits / But only a grandiloquist putting us down.1984, Merlo J. Pusey, “Slaves of the Pen”, in Ripples of Intuition, Midvale, Utah: Eden Hill, →ISBN, part I (Poetry in Perspective), page 8:

What does grandiloquist mean?: Grandiloquist means someone who is grandiloquent, especially one who makes a living by giving lectures.
How do you use grandiloquist in a sentence?: But Sir Robert must shine as something grand, be it only as a grandiloquist.
What part of speech is grandiloquist?: Grandiloquist can be a noun or an adjective.
What is the plural of grandiloquist?: The plural of grandiloquist is grandiloquists.

Adapted from Wiktionary: grandiloquist (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated: 2026-09-02

Cite this entry: “grandiloquist.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/grandiloquist. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.