Bomphiologia, also known as verborum bombus, is a rhetorical

Rhetoric

Rhetoric is the art of discourse, an art that aims to improve the facility of speakers or writers who attempt to inform, persuade, or motivate particular audiences in specific situations. As a subject of formal study and a productive civic practice, rhetoric has played a central role in the Western...

 technique wherein the speaker brags excessively.

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History

The term verborum bombus is used by the sixteenth-century English

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

 rhetorician Richard Sherry in his 1550 book A treatise of Schemes & Tropes. In it, Sherry says

Verborum bombus, when small & triflyng thynges are set out wyth great gasyng wordes. Example of this have you in Terrence of the boasting souldiar.

Sherry mentions the miles gloriosus

Miles Gloriosus

Miles Gloriosus is a stock character of a boastful soldier from the comic theatre of ancient Rome, and variations on this character have appeared in drama and fiction ever since. The character derives from the alazôn or "braggart" of the Greek Old Comedy...

character from the plays of the Roman

Ancient Rome

Ancient Rome was a thriving civilization that grew on the Italian Peninsula as early as the 8th century BC. Located along the Mediterranean Sea and centered on the city of Rome, it expanded to one of the largest empires in the ancient world....

 playwright Plautus

Plautus

Titus Maccius Plautus , commonly known as "Plautus", was a Roman playwright of the Old Latin period. His comedies are the earliest surviving intact works in Latin literature. He wrote Palliata comoedia, the genre devised by the innovator of Latin literature, Livius Andronicus...

. The miles gloriosus (meaning "braggart soldier") is a stock character

Stock character

A Stock character is a fictional character based on a common literary or social stereotype. Stock characters rely heavily on cultural types or names for their personality, manner of speech, and other characteristics. In their most general form, stock characters are related to literary archetypes,...

 from Plautus established in a play by Plautus. The miles gloriosus was a soldier who, although a coward, bragged excessively about past experiences.

The most famous miles gloriosus in theatre is probably Shakespeare's Sir John Falstaff

Falstaff

Sir John Falstaff is a fictional character who appears in three plays by William Shakespeare. In the two Henry IV plays, he is a companion to Prince Hal, the future King Henry V. A fat, vain, boastful, and cowardly knight, Falstaff leads the apparently wayward Prince Hal into trouble, and is...

. Falstaff is a fat old knight in the service of the English king who brags about his battle experiences, despite being cowardly and adverse to battle. In one scene, Falstaff says

I would to god my name were not so terrible to the enemy as it is. I were better to be eaten to death with a rust than to be scoured to nothing with perpetual motion (Henry IV, Part 2 1.2.218-221).

Falstaff here is lamenting the fact that because his name is so terrifying, enemies avoid fighting him. This is obviously bomphiologia on Falstaff's part.

Uses

Bomphiologia can be used to comic effect, as in the above hyperbolic

Hyperbole

Hyperbole is the use of exaggeration as a rhetorical device or figure of speech. It may be used to evoke strong feelings or to create a strong impression, but is not meant to be taken literally....

 instance with the character of Falstaff. This is an ironic

Irony

Irony is a rhetorical device, literary technique, or situation in which there is a sharp incongruity or discordance that goes beyond the simple and evident intention of words or actions...

 use of the term, because Falstaff is an old, fat drunkard—-obviously in no condition to be scaring enemies as he claims to be.

Edgar Allan Poe

Edgar Allan Poe

Edgar Allan Poe was an American author, poet, editor and literary critic, considered part of the American Romantic Movement. Best known for his tales of mystery and the macabre, Poe was one of the earliest American practitioners of the short story and is considered the inventor of the detective...

 used bomphiologia as a part of his style. One instance of this is in the following passage

two cats ... alighting opposite one another on my visage, betook themselves to indecorous contention for the paltry consideration of my nose. ("Loss of Breath" 2:159)

This could have been simply stated, "Two cats fought over my nose." Instead, Poe presents a more stylized version which fills out the personality of his narrator. It lets the reader know that the story is told by an unreliable narrator

Unreliable narrator

An unreliable narrator is a narrator, whether in literature, film, or theatre, whose credibility has been seriously compromised. The term was coined in 1961 by Wayne C. Booth in The Rhetoric of Fiction. This narrative mode is one that can be developed by an author for a number of reasons, usually...

who is prone to exaggeration.