hot air

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hot air (uncountable)

1. (literally) Air that has been heated, especially so as to function as the lifting agent of a hot-air balloon.

   The balloon was equipped with a burner to create hot air for lift.

2. (idiomatic) Empty, confused, or exaggerated talk lacking meaning or substance; bluster.
   • 1913, William MacLeod Raine, chapter 8, in The Vision Splendid:

     "You'll never get anywhere so long as youse trail with that reform bunch. It's all hot air and tomfool theory."

   • 1921, Alice Hegan Rice, chapter 28, in Quin:

     "You give me a lot of hot air about your conscience. Why don't you get a soap-box and preach on the street-corners?"

   • 2001 June 24, Johanna McGeary, "How Bad Is China?," Time (retrieved 22 Sept 2013):

     Some of the steam in Washington rises from real issues, but a lot is the hot air of partisan politics.

   • 2014 November 6, Rob Nixon, “Naomi Klein’s ‘This Changes Everything’”, in New York Times‎:

     Klein diagnoses impressively what hasn’t worked. No more claptrap about fracked gas as a bridge to renewables. Enough already of the international summit meetings that produce sirocco-quality hot air, and nonbinding agreements that bind us all to more emissions.

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