Noun

1. A kind of coarse twilled cotton or cotton and linen stuff
2. A class of cloth including corduroy and velveteen
3. Pompous, inflated or pretentious writing or speech

Quotations

• 1882, Fustian, of which I have found only one entry before 1401, occurs frequently in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. It appears to have been a ribbed cloth. — James Edwin Thorold Rogers, A History of Agriculture and Prices in England, Volume 4, p. 568.

Usage notes

• Used in the sense of "pompous" since at least the time of Shakespeare. For this shift of meaning, compare bombast.