bombinator

English

Etymology

From bombinate +‎ -or. Frog sense, New Latin (genus name), agent noun form of Medieval Latin bombināre, from Late Latin bombitare (“to buzz or hum”).

Noun

bombinator (plural bombinators)

1. (literary) A person who speaks or makes noise to no effect, as a flattering toady or empty orator.
   • 1941, H.G. Wells, You Can't be Too Careful: A Sample of Life 1901-1951, London: Secker & Warburg, page 284:

     None of this multitude of thinkers and their satellites brought his thoughts into really conclusive contact with the others. To do it would have been to discover much practical identity and so lose distinction. After their fashion, each bombinated abundantly with only the slightest regard to other bombinators.

   • 1941, Bennett Cerf, Van H. Cartmell, editors, Sixteen Famous American Plays, Random House, page 140:

     Therefore our apology to such bombinators, radicals, Utopians and Schoengeisten who might read this work expecting intellectual mayhem.

   • 1954, Ben Hecht, A Child of the Century, New Haven: Yale University Press, published 2020, page 395:

     Alice Duer Miller, erect and fastidious, crowded her manor with clowns and bombinators.

   • 1957, Ben Hecht, Charlie: The Improbable Life and Times of Charles MacArthur, Harper, page 62:

     [T]hese and a score of barroom bombinators and local-room moonshooters were around MacArthur like a Sorbonne faculty.

2. Short for bombinator toad.
   • 1898, Wilhelm Biedermann, Electro-physiology, volume 2, Macmillan, page 85:

     Schiff adduces experiments on bombinators and toads[.]

   • 1981, Acta Biologica Cracoviensia: Series: Zoologia, volumes 23-26, page 36:

     Tadpoles of the B. bombina are devoid of anicotto glanduare. Neither is it found in other bombinators (B. pachypus).