1. Characteristic of an excessive self-esteem or an exaggerated self-importance: The university newspaper expressed some of the students' feelings that there was a pompous professor who seemed to think that he was much too qualified to teach students who had such a minimal amount of intelligence.
2. A reference to someone who tries to be seen as being magnificent or very important: Whenever the star sportsman appeared on TV, he had a pompous attitude which upset some viewers.
3. Etymology: borrowed from Old French pompe, "magnificence" and directly from Late Latin pomposus, "stately"; from Latin pompa, "stately display, stately procession".

In Church Latin, used in deprecatory sense (expressing disapproval or criticism) for a "worldly display, vain show (excessively proud)."

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