grandiloquize

Verb

grandiloquize (third-person singular simple present grandiloquizes, present participle grandiloquizing, simple past and past participle grandiloquized)

1. (intransitive) To speak in a grandiloquent manner.
   • 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...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
   • 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...1921, Max Eastman, “The Discovery of Benign Humor”, in The Sense of Humor, New York, N.Y.: Charles Scribner’s Sons, page 169
2. (transitive) To describe (something) in terms that exaggerate its importance or impressiveness.
   • 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...1841, [Catherine Gore], chapter VIII, in Cecil: or, The Adventures of a Coxcomb. […], volume I, Philadelphia, Pa.: Lea and Blanchard, page 131
   • 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.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