Plural of fustian; sturdy fabrics made from cotton and linen, often dyed dark colors, or pompous and pretentious language.
From Middle English fustian, from Old French fustaine, derived from Medieval Latin fustaneum, likely from Fustat, a district in Cairo, Egypt, where the fabric was manufactured. The word evolved to describe both the fabric and later, the inflated speech of characters wearing such clothes in theater.
Fustian cloth was so associated with bombastic stage characters in medieval theater that the word itself became slang for pretentious nonsense—kind of like how we use 'drama' to mean exaggeration today, except the Elizabethans literally called pompous talk 'fustian!'
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