Name of a thrasonical character in Ben Jonson’s Every Man in Hum., used to designate a blustering braggart who pretends to prowess. Hence Bobadilian, Bobadilish adjs. Bobadilism.
1771. P. Parsons, Newmarket, I. 82. Stay, stay, my good Bobadil, I have not done with you yet.
c. 1778. Conquerors, 34. Such valiant Bobadils are caress’d and knighted.
1830. Blackw. Mag., XXVII. 735. This bluster and braggadocio, these burly Bobadilisms.
1832. Fraser’s Mag., V. 163. A Bobadilish bulletin.
1837. Carlyle, Fr. Rev., II. III. iii. 145. That Bobadilian method of contest.
