Pronounced: meh-THOO-zuh-luh, noun
Notes: There are a couple of meanings; I knew one, and was a bit fuzzy about the other
Yesterday’s word
The word bumptious means “presumptuously, obtusely, and often noisily self-assertive; obtrusive”
First usage
Our word came into English around 1800
Background / Comments
My idea about our word was that it mean clumsy, thinking of someone bumping into other people. That is kind of the right idea, but not because of clumsiness — think of a self-important person not bothering to look where he is going. It is thought that the word was created from the noun bump plus the adjectival ending -tious. When our word first entered English, it meant “conceited”.
Richard's Vocabulary Word-of-the-Day 