blather

From Old Norse blaðra (“to speak inarticulately, talk nonsense”). Cognate with German dialectal bladdern (“to talk nonsense, blather”).

• blether (Northern England, Scotland, Northern Ireland)

• (UK) IPA^(key): /blæðə(ɹ)/
• Rhymes: -æðə(r)

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, Felix Holt, the Radical, Edinburgh: William Blackwood, Volume 1, Chapter 11, p. 249,

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

   • 1914, James Joyce, “Grace” in Dubliners, London: Grant Richards, p. 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, Gould’s Book of Fish, New York: Grove Atlantic, 2014, “The Pot-Bellied Seahorse,” 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, New York: Liveright, Act 1, Scene 1, p. 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 Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, New York: William Morrow, Part 3, Chapter 18, p. 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) Nonsensical or foolish talk.
   • 1897, G. A. Henty, With Moore at Corunna, New York: Scribner, Chapter 1, p. 16,

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

   • 1922, Rafael Sabatini, Captain Blood, New York: Grosset & Dunlap, Chapter 23, p. 265,

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

   • 1995, Rohinton Mistry, A Fine Balance, Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, Part 5, p. 280,

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

• See also Thesaurus:chatter

1. 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,

• Barthel, Halbert, halbert