Fustian

[fuhs-chuh n] /ˈfʌs tʃən/

noun
1.
a stout fabric of cotton and flax.
2.
a fabric of stout twilled cotton or of cotton and low-quality wool, with a short nap or pile.
3.
inflated or turgid language in writing or speaking:
Fustian can’t disguise the author’s meager plot.
adjective
4.
made of fustian:
a fustian coat; fustian bed linen.
5.
pompous or bombastic, as language:
fustian melodrama.
6.
worthless; cheap:
fustian knaves and dupes.
/ˈfʌstɪən/
noun
1.

2.
pompous or pretentious talk or writing
adjective
3.
cheap; worthless
4.
pompous; bombastic
n.

“thick cotton cloth,” c.1200, from Old French fustaigne, from Medieval Latin fustaneum, probably from Latin fustis “staff, stick of wood,” probably a loan-translation of Greek xylina lina “linens of wood” (i.e. “cotton”), but the Medieval Latin word also is sometimes said to be from Fostat, town near Cairo where this cloth was manufactured. [Klein finds this derivation untenable.] Figurative sense of “pompous, inflated language” recorded by 1590s.