Reading classical Russian literature of the 18th - 19th centuries, modern schoolchildren sometimes stumble upon words that have not been used in everyday life for a long time. They became archaic, they were no longer needed. An example of one such word is "pompous".
Meaning and etymology
The etymology of this word goes back to the Old Slavonic languages, growing from the lexeme "vyspr", which means "upper" or "higher". In other words, lofty - it means pompous, pompous, sublime. It is used, as a rule, when the author wants to describe something unattainably distant, located somewhere above, in a metaphysical sense.
Another less popular but similar meaning of the word lofty is "the highest" in a literal sense, such as "the highest mountain". The antonym of this word, respectively, will be "inferior", "base", both in the direct and in the metaphorical sense.
In modern society, you are unlikely to be understood if you use this term. It's better to use the word "pompous".
Examples of usage
As previously stated, lofty is an anachronism, an outdated word. You can meet him in old sources, such as medieval translations of the Bible, for example. There, the word is used in a less popular sense, as something highly placed: "The Lord will visit the lofty host on high, and the kings of the earth on earth." Here we see that the army of angels is meant, which literally lives high in heaven.
And here is the second example of the use of the word, from later manuscripts (in this case, Lermontov, XIX century).
But there is an end to everything
And even lofty dreams…
Here, this term refers to dreams of something unspeakably high, pure and bright. Which, as it were, strive upward, they are so far from the low, earthly.
Unfortunately, beautiful words like "pompous" are gradually forgotten and go out of circulation, although they are still kept in editions of Russian classics.
