Blurb
noun, verb ·Uncommon ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 A short description of a book, film, or other work, written and used for promotional purposes.
"In a few weeks, blurbs would come back; a few, or many, depending on the book. There were certain writers we knew were always good for a blurb: Louis Untermeyer would always come through — poetry, fiction, humor — whatever, he'd send a well‐turned commendation."
- 2 a promotional statement (as found on the dust jackets of books) wordnet
- 1 To write or quote in a blurb. transitive
"When Rene Rodriguez of The Miami Herald blogged about having seen and loved “The Departed” in Toronto in a supposedly private screening last fall, Warner Brothers “scolded me very strongly,” he said, “but they still blurbed a line from my blog in their opening ad.”"
- 2 To supply with a blurb. transitive
"The unseemly business of book blurbing has been source of both humor and concern in the pages of The New Yorker."
Example
More examples"He wrote a short blurb about the movie he had just watched."
Etymology
Coined by American humorist Gelett Burgess in 1907 on a dust jacket at a trade association dinner. The dust jacket said “YES, this is a “BLURB”!” and featured a (fictitious) “Miss Belinda Blurb” shown calling out, described as “in the act of blurbing”.
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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.