Blather
noun, verb ·Common ·High school level
Definitions
- 1 Foolish or nonsensical talk. derogatory, uncountable
"That is the worst of being in an Irish regiment, nothing can be done widout ever so much blather;"
- 2 Obsolete form of bladder. alt-of, obsolete
"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,"
- 3 foolish gibberish wordnet
- 1 To talk rapidly without making much sense. derogatory, intransitive
"“There you go blatherin’,” said Brindle, intending a mild rebuke."
- 2 to talk foolishly wordnet
- 3 To say (something foolish or nonsensical); to say (something) in a foolish or overly verbose way. derogatory, transitive
"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!"
Example
More examples"Enough blather; get to the point."
Etymology
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”).
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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.