Word.ws English Dictionary

pompatus

pompatus noun: one who is pompous or splendid.

Noun

pompatus

  1. (nonce-word) One who is pompous or splendid.
    • She loved the way the lecturer stated it, offhand, but with the air of a pompatus.2000, Michael Ondaatje, Anil's Ghost, Picador,, →ISBN, page 140
    • It's a good job there was no need for a baseball infographic about “The joker” because I'd have been forced to use a terrible pun: the pompatus of glove.2011, Craig Robinson, Flip Flop Fly Ball: An Infographic Baseball Adventure, →ISBN
  2. (nonce-word) Pomp, ostentatiousness, or spectacle.
    • It could be a whang-dang-doodle, a cloche hat made out of coyote fur, or a phylactery testifying to the pompatus of love.2004, Michael Chabon, Michael Mignola, McSweeney's Enchanted Chamber of Astonishing Stories, →ISBN, page 84
    • Got my pompatus up; my rave'll be on in a few. I must have popped too many; the Iowa donkeys are starting to bray in my ears.2010, Loren Berengere, Satirical Denouncements of the Wicked Americans and We Anti-Matriarchalists, page 98

Examples of pompatus in a sentence

  • Ryan Mallett is the pompatus of offense.2014 November 6, Barryfromtexas, “Week 9 Thingy - Not Enough Heh to Go Around (Now with grammarfication)”, in SBNation:
  • “And my mom is the pompatus of love,” Will said.2015, Suanne Laqueur, Give Me Your Answer True, →ISBN:
  • If you're into the pompatus of Twitter, send email to […] and I'll sign you up for the newsletter that alerts you when the week's poll is posted.2015 June 26, Eric Zorn, “What same-sex marriage backers 'lost'”, in Chicago Tribune:

Origin of pompatus

First used in the lyrics of the Steve Miller Band's 1972 song "Enter Maurice" ("whisper sweet words of epismetology in your ear and speak to you of the pompatus of love.") and popularized in their 1973 song "The Joker" ("Cause I speak of the pompatus of love"), but having no apparent meaning in either song. The lyric was inspired by the lyric "Oh my darling, let me whisper sweet words of pizmotality and discuss the puppetutes of love" in The Medallions' "The Letter" written by Vernon Green; puppetutes, from puppet, described a fantasy paper-doll or puppet-like girl.

Questions about pompatus

What does pompatus mean?
Pompatus means one who is pompous or splendid.
How do you use pompatus in a sentence?
Ryan Mallett is the pompatus of offense.
What part of speech is pompatus?
Pompatus is a noun.

Words near pompatus in the dictionary

  1. pompanoes
  2. pompanos
  3. Pompapiel
  4. Pompas
  5. pompatic
  6. pompatus
  7. Pompe disease
  8. pomped
  9. Pompei
  10. Pompeian
  11. Pompeian red

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: pompatus (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.

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