blather
verbEtymology
From Middle English bletheren, bloderen, from Old Norse blaðra (“to speak inarticulately, talk nonsense”). Cognate with Scots blether, bladder, bledder (“to blather”), dialectal German bladdern (“to talk nonsense, blather”), Norwegian bladra (“to babble, speak imperfectly”), Icelandic blaðra (“to twaddle”).
- inherited from bletheren
Definitions
To talk rapidly without making much sense.
- “There you go blatherin’,” said Brindle, intending a mild rebuke.
- It was at the unveiling of Sir John Gray's statue. Edmund Dwyer Gray was speaking, blathering away, and here was this old fellow, crabbed-looking old chap, looking at him from under his bushy eyebrows.
- On and on he blathered, taking refuge in the one thing he felt lent him superiority: words.
To say (something foolish or nonsensical)
To say (something foolish or nonsensical); to say (something) in a foolish or overly verbose way.
- Then, just before the wedding, the old man feels he’s honor bound to tell his future son-in-law the secret of his past; so the damned idiot blathers the whole story of his killing the man and breaking jail!
- […] the church attitude has never been that a teacher should be allowed to blather anything that comes into his head without any accountability at all.
Foolish or nonsensical talk.
- That is the worst of being in an Irish regiment, nothing can be done widout ever so much blather;
- Will you cease your blather of mutiny and treason and courts-martial?
- With years of proofreading under my belt, I knew exactly the blather and bluster favoured by professional politicians.
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Obsolete form of bladder.
- 1596, Charles Fitzgeoffrey, Sir Francis Drake His Honorable Lifes Commendation, and His Tragicall Deathes Lamentation, Oxford: Joseph Barnes, […] on Vlisses Circe did bestowe A blather, where the windes imboweld were,
The neighborhood
Derived
blatherer, blatherskate, blatherskite, blathersome, blatherstorm, blathery
Vish — recursive loop
No curated loop yet for blather. Loops are being traced one word at a time while the ingestion pipeline matures.
sense glosses and etymology drawn from English Wiktionary · source · CC-BY-SA