blather

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”).

• blether (Northern England, Scotland, Northern Ireland)

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /blæðə(ɹ)/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -æðə(ɹ)

blather (third-person singular simple present blathers, present participle blathering, simple past and past participle blathered)

1. (intransitive, derogatory) To talk rapidly without making much sense.
   • 1866, George Eliot [pseudonym; Mary Ann Evans], chapter XI, in Felix Holt, the Radical […], volume I, Edinburgh, London: William Blackwood and Sons, →OCLC, page 249:

     “There you go blatherin’,” said Brindle, intending a mild rebuke.

   • 1905 (date written), James Joyce, “Grace”, in Dubliners, London: Grant Richards, published June 1914, →OCLC, page 210:

     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.

   • 2001, Richard Flanagan, “The Pot-Bellied Seahorse”, in Gould’s Book of Fish‎^[1], New York, N.Y.: Grove Atlantic, published 2014, section 5:

     On and on he blathered, taking refuge in the one thing he felt lent him superiority: words.

2. (transitive, derogatory) To say (something foolish or nonsensical); to say (something) in a foolish or overly verbose way.
   • 1929, Eugene O’Neill, Dynamo‎^[2], New York, N.Y.: Liveright, act I, scene i, page 31:

     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!

   • 1974, Robert M[aynard] Pirsig, chapter 18, in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry into Values, New York, N.Y.: William Morrow & Company, →ISBN, part 3, page 214:

     […] 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.

blather (uncountable)

1. (derogatory) Foolish or nonsensical talk.

   Synonyms: blither; see also Thesaurus:chatter

   • 1897, G. A. Henty, chapter 1, in With Moore at Corunna, New York: Scribner, page 16:

     That is the worst of being in an Irish regiment, nothing can be done widout ever so much blather;

   • 1922, Rafael Sabatini, chapter 23, in Captain Blood, New York: Grosset & Dunlap, page 265:

     Will you cease your blather of mutiny and treason and courts-martial?

   • 1995, Rohinton Mistry, A Fine Balance‎^[3], Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, part 5, page 280:

     With years of proofreading under my belt, I knew exactly the blather and bluster favoured by professional politicians.

blather (plural blathers)

1. Obsolete form of bladder.
   • 1596, Charles Fitzgeoffrey, Sir Francis Drake His Honorable Lifes Commendation, and His Tragicall Deathes Lamentation, Oxford: Joseph Barnes,^[4]

     […] on Vlisses Circe did bestowe

     A blather, where the windes imboweld were,

• Barthel, Halbert, halbert