fustian

****************************************************************
Looking for "information technology?" Check out all the latest words by
subscribing to Merriam-WebsterCollegiate.com today!
http://www.merriam-webster.com/cgi-bin/collegiate_sub.pl?refr=C_wod
****************************************************************

The Word of the Day for August 17 is: 

fustian   \FUSS-chun\   noun
     1 : a strong cotton and linen fabric 
    *2 : highflown or affected writing or speech; broadly : anything
highflown or affected in style

Example sentence:
     The book is just more fustian from another author who is a
pretentious bore writing to impress himself.

Did you know?
     "Fustian" has been used in English for a kind of cloth since the 13th
century, but it didn't acquire its highflown sense until at least three
centuries later. One of the earliest known uses of the "pretentious
writing or speech" sense occurs in Christopher Marlowe's play _Doctor
Faustus_ when Wagner says, "Let thy left eye be diametarily [sic] fixed
upon my right heel, with quasi vestigiis nostris insistere," and the clown
replies, "God forgive me, he speaks Dutch fustian." The precise origins of
the word "fustian" aren't clear. English picked it up from Anglo-French,
which adopted it from Medieval Latin, but its roots beyond that point are
a subject of some dispute.

*Indicates the sense illustrated in the example sentence.