Bloat

//bləʊt// adj, noun, verb, slang

adj, noun, verb, slang ·Common ·High school level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    Distention of the abdomen from death. countable, uncountable
  2. 2
    swelling of the rumen or intestinal tract of domestic animals caused by excessive gas wordnet
  3. 3
    Pathological overdistention of rumen with gas in a ruminant. countable, uncountable
  4. 4
    Wasteful use of space or other resources. countable, figuratively, uncountable

    "Adding an e-mail feature to this simple text editor would be pointless bloat."

  5. 5
    A worthless, dissipated fellow. countable, dated, derogatory, slang, uncountable
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  1. 6
    A group of hippopotamuses. collective, countable, uncountable

    "A group of hippos is called a bloat."

Verb
  1. 1
    To cause to become distended.
  2. 2
    become bloated or swollen or puff up wordnet
  3. 3
    To get an overdistended rumen, talking of a ruminant. intransitive
  4. 4
    make bloated or swollen wordnet
  5. 5
    To fill soft substance with gas, water, etc.; to cause to swell.
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  1. 6
    To become distended; to swell up. intransitive

    "if a Person of a firm Conſtitution begins to bloat, and from being warm grows cold, his Fibres grow weak, Anxiety and Palpitations of the Heart are a ſign of weak Fibres"

  2. 7
    To fill with vanity or conceit.

    "1675, John Dryden, Prologue to Circe by Dr. Davenant Encourage him, and bloat him up with Praise"

  3. 8
    To preserve by slightly salting and lightly smoking. dated

    "bloated herring"

  4. 9
    To increase to an excessive amount.

    "In the UK, the fraction of electricity generated by nuclear plants has slid steadily downwards, from 25% in the 1990s to 16% in 2020. Of the five nuclear stations still producing power, only one will run beyond 2028. Hinkley Point C, the first new nuclear plant in a generation, is being built in Somerset, but its cost has bloated to more than £25bn."

Adjective
  1. 1
    bloated. obsolete

    "Let the bloat king tempt you again to bed"

Synonyms

All synonyms
accrueaccumulateadd toadvanceaggrandizeamplify

Example

More examples

"if a Person of a firm Conſtitution begins to bloat, and from being warm grows cold, his Fibres grow weak, Anxiety and Palpitations of the Heart are a ſign of weak Fibres"

Etymology

Perhaps from Middle English blot, blout (“soft; flexible; pliable”), from Old Norse blautr (“soft”). Akin to Danish blød, Dutch bloot (“nude”) and German bloß (“nude”).

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.