How to Use bumptious in a Sentence

bumptious

adjective
  • The brief, bumptious chapters cover roughly a year, and the lead player doesn't come of age so much as rip away childhood's masks.
    — John Domini, Dallas News, 1 July 2019
  • Americans are not afraid of bumptious, raucous, and robust debate about these matters.
    — Joe Palazzolo, WSJ, 6 Apr. 2018
  • Gorsuch’s abrupt pivot to arrogance has been on full display in his bumptious opinions and questions from the bench.
    — Mark Joseph Stern, Slate Magazine, 18 Oct. 2017
  • Which is not to imply that the six-year-old, with quite a bumptious career behind him, is of Secretariat's muster.
    — Guy Martin, Forbes, 30 Mar. 2024
  • The pageantry of the opening ceremonies—sometimes bumptious, and other times achingly sincere—are pieces of craftsmanship in their own right.
    — David Sims, The Atlantic, 23 Feb. 2018
  • Bumptious reporters shove microphones into faces and ask inane questions, and cameras are trained interminably on fires and auto accidents.
    — Mike Scott, NOLA.com, 12 May 2017
  • Fogel had intimate access to Rodchenkov during this period, and the good/bad doctor emerges as both tortured and bumptious.
    — Peter Rainer, The Christian Science Monitor, 4 Aug. 2017
  • Democratic governments should defend their policies before a public free to express itself, even in bumptious and offensive terms.
    — Daniel Foster, National Review, 30 Nov. 2023
  • And the endangered youth isn’t a handsome boy but the bumptious, ginger Anna, who endures many adventures and hardships while trying to redeem her sister.
    — Jesse Green, New York Times, 15 Sep. 2017
  • More than a few commentators have noted the contrast between the manager and the bumptious politicians fighting with one another over Brexit.
    — Ceylan Yeginsu, New York Times, 10 July 2018
  • George Washington’s mother, Mary Ball Washington, is often seen as a bumptious obstacle to her son’s success.
    — New York Times, 11 June 2019
  • In public, Newsom speaks often and openly about his errors, fortifying his image as a bumptious, slightly hapless victim of his own enthusiasms.
    — Nathan Heller, New Yorker, 1 Feb. 2026
  • Bailey is suitably bumptious but effortful as Harry, but the drama suffers most with the underwritten and over-emoting Holly and Anna.
    — David Benedict, Variety, 20 June 2023
  • But if the tech industry’s bumptious history with antitrust enforcement is any lesson, a caretaker who has reluctantly stepped into the spotlight might be preferable to a charismatic leader born to it.
    — Daisuke Wakabayashi, New York Times, 21 Oct. 2020
  • So, to the loud and bumptious anti-Biden chorus that blames him for everything bad, there is no equally loud and bumptious pro-Biden answering chorus speaking as one and giving him credit for everything good.
    — Michael Tomasky, The New Republic, 18 Sep. 2023
  • The moment became legendary for many Canadians who relished the sight of our young, charismatic leader imposing his cheery manners on the bumptious American president.
    — Jonathan Kay, WSJ, 25 Feb. 2022
  • There is a tonal ambiguity to the bumptious romantic pursuit that follows, a surprisingly tremulous and fragile air, which may be what dismayed critics who were expecting a more conventional drama.
    — Richard Brody, The New Yorker, 9 Sep. 2019
  • Although not always directly correlated with being bumptious and arrogant, performing at a higher standard than others, and having something to show for it, will always garner attention.
    — Clare French, Hartford Courant, 16 Mar. 2024
  • The soaring office walls, stripped of Young’s bumptious archaeology (including his vertical herd of taxidermy), had been repainted in the dull buttercream of Capitol Hill bureaucracy.
    — Dan Zak, Anchorage Daily News, 17 Sep. 2022
  • This splendid, wry satire is about a wealthy family, self-important and confident in their morality, whose blithe and bumptious existences are thrown into disarray when their father clandestinely decides to give all their money to charity, and so (in their opinions) completely destroys their lives.
    — Literary Hub, Literary Hub, 1 July 2025
  • The Star of India’s intensely curlicued provenance and bumptious post-sale 20th-century history is a Baedeker for all who might aspire to purchase the Pure Land, should it ever be formally or publicly offered for sale.
    — Guy Martin, Forbes.com, 21 Jan. 2026
  • The Apollon Musagète’s textures switched easily and impressively between the bumptious rhythmic ostinati and delicate, atmospheric harmonic effects answered by Ohlsson’s deft upper-register playing.
    — Lukas Schulze, San Diego Union-Tribune, 10 Oct. 2022
  • The day after Politico reported that Scott Bessent had threatened to punch a bumptious housing official in the face, the secretary of the Treasury addressed Republican luminaries gathered to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Laffer curve under the big chandelier in his department’s Cash Room.
    — Ben Smith, semafor.com, 8 Dec. 2025

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'bumptious.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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