Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • adjective Crudely or loudly assertive; pushy.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Offensively self-assertive; liable to give or take offense; disposed to quarrel; domineering; forward; pushing.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • adjective colloq. Self-conceited; forward; pushing.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adjective Obtrusively pushy; self-assertive to a pretentious extreme.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • adjective offensively self-assertive

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Perhaps blend of bump and presumptuous.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Probably a play on the pattern of words like fractious.

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Examples

  • 'bumptious' - about it, because his own red hair was very plainly to be seen behind.

    David Copperfield Dickens, Charles, 1812-1870 1917

  • 'bumptious' - about it, because his own red hair was very plainly to be seen behind.

    David Copperfield Charles Dickens 1841

  • "Yes, sir," I returned proudly, for the word "bumptious" had a ring of importance in it, and I had every reason to believe that the Malcolms were persons of quite large importance.

    David Malcolm Nelson Lloyd 1903

  • Smith was a young man of about twenty-eight, vain and no doubt somewhat "bumptious," and it is easy to believe that Wingfield and the others who felt his superior force and realized his experience, honestly suspected him of designs against the expedition.

    Captain John Smith Charles Dudley Warner 1864

  • Smith was a young man of about twenty-eight, vain and no doubt somewhat "bumptious," and it is easy to believe that Wingfield and the others who felt his superior force and realized his experience, honestly suspected him of designs against the expedition.

    The Complete Project Gutenberg Writings of Charles Dudley Warner Charles Dudley Warner 1864

  • Now was the time -- he had such confidence in the man, that the idea of getting him in for next race entirely changed the aspect of affairs to him, and made him feel as "bumptious" again as he had done in the morning.

    Tom Brown at Oxford Thomas Hughes 1859

  • Actually it sounds more like you and your management need to receive a MCP envelope. hit your regiment is, I cannot comment too much, except to note that if (when I was a soldier) some useless twát had got a course because I had to fill their slot on an exercise then a formal complaint would have gone in (maybe that's why my final CR as a soldier before I went to RMAS stated I was "bumptious" and "truculent"?)

    Army Rumour Service 2010

  • Actually it sounds more like you and your management need to receive a MCP envelope. hit your regiment is, I cannot comment too much, except to note that if (when I was a soldier) some useless twát had got a course because I had to fill their slot on an exercise then a formal complaint would have gone in (maybe that's why my final CR as a soldier before I went to RMAS stated I was "bumptious" and "truculent"?)

    Army Rumour Service 2010

  • Snappy dialogue, a rollicking storyline of love and piracy, and excellent supporting turns by Harlow, Beery, and Lewis Stone keep the bumptious "China Seas" afloat for the whole voyage.

    John Farr: Clark Gable: King of Hollywood John Farr 2012

  • Why you Elders of Sodom even waste your breath on such bumptious bluster, we really don't know!

    Outer Alliance Pride Day Hal Duncan 2009

Comments

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  • "... who for all his overweening bumptiousness in things scientific can scarcely distinguish an acid from an alkali ..."

    Joyce, Ulysses, 14

    January 22, 2007

  • The fact that this is an actual, non-madeupical word absolutely delights me.

    April 6, 2008

  • The fact that overweening is an actual, non-madeupical word absolutely delights me.

    April 6, 2008

  • The fact that Joyce came up with phrases like overweening bumptiousness delights me.

    April 7, 2008

  • Okay, this whole conversation is delighting me.

    April 7, 2008

  • How delightful.

    April 7, 2008

  • I bathe in a a glow-worm symphony of delightedness.

    April 7, 2008

  • ...a glow-worm SYMPHONY? Really?

    April 8, 2008

  • Given that they're glow-worms, wouldn't it have to be a symphony of lightedness?

    April 8, 2008

  • Of course. They're just making the shape of the letter D on the roof of the cave.

    April 8, 2008

  • What a delightful page this has been. Not at all bumptious.

    April 8, 2008

  • Are there other words besides this one that rhyme with scrumptious? If so, why?

    August 14, 2008

  • Presumptuous. Why indeed?

    August 14, 2008