bumptious

Definition

Obtrusively pushy; self-important; self-assertive to a pretentious extreme.

Etymology

Probably from bump, on the pattern of words like fractious or presumptious.

Example Sentences

• "[…"
• "From another point of view, it was a place without a soul. The well-to-do had hearts of stone; the rich were brutally bumptious; the Press, the Municipality, all the public men, were ridiculously, vaingloriously self-satisfied."
• "She could stand it no longer. It was full of prying old women, she said, who stared in one's face, and of bumptious young men who trod on one's toes."