1. pretentious speech or writing; pompous language 2a. a coarse sturdy cloth made of cotton and flax b. any of several thick twilled cotton fabrics, such as corduroy, having a short nap
This word appears in a book review in Books & Culture: “Alas, Taylor has also inhaled deeply of the intellectual helium that inflates the ‘New Economy,’ and a fusillade of obfuscation permeates the text. There’s the fustian of ‘complexity’: ‘growing complexity,’ ‘increasingly complex,’ ‘infinitely complex.’ (‘Complexity’ and its cognates rank with ‘interesting’ and ‘problematic’ as tokens of mediocrity.)”