Both Uses of
sententious
in
Catch-22
- He broke his sacred oath the very next year, when he spent the holiday in a hotel room instead in intellectual conversation with Lieutenant Scheisskopf's wife, who had Dori Duz's dog tags on for the occasion and who henpecked Yossarian sententiously for being cynical and callous about Thanksgiving, even though she didn't believe in God just as much as he didn't.†
Chpt 18
- Colonel Cathcart clucked sententiously, shocked by the suggestion.†
Chpt 35 *
Definition:
-
(sententious) annoying attempt to sound smart or important
or more rarely (and typically in classic literature):
expressing wisdom or knowledge concisely