claptrap
Other forms: claptraps
Use the word claptrap when you're talking about overblown nonsense. You might read your English professor's new book and secretly feel that it's nothing but claptrap.
Writing that's grandiose or boastful is one kind of claptrap, and a ridiculous or absurd speech is another. Most claptrap involves ornate ways of talking or writing, involving rhetorical flourishes and a lack of deep meaning. The word comes from the idea of "a trick to 'catch' applause," and its meaning evolved to mean "showy, cheap talk" and also, to some degree, "nonsense."
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pompous or pretentious talk or writingtype of:grandiloquence, grandiosity, magniloquence, ornateness, rhetorichigh-flown style; excessive use of verbal ornamentation
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Vocabulary lists containing claptrap
Published in 1949, this dystopian classic imagines a future of perpetual war, militaristic propaganda, and total government surveillance.
During World War II, thirteen-year-old Michael and his family infiltrate Nazi organizations to help the Allies defeat Hitler.
In this Western, a fourteen-year-old girl attempts to avenge her father's death.