blague

plural blagues

1. countableuncountableMendacious boasting that lacks seriousness; falsehood or humbug, especially when it is told mockingly or without the expectation that anyone believes it.

   But whereas blague, as Pound seems to envisage it, begins with pomp and ends in derision, this poem emerges from circumstances of derision

   2008, Geoffrey Hill, Kenneth Haynes, Collected Critical Writings, page 257

   3 more examples

   The difference is this: one may be obliged to maintain a falsehood from feelings of pride or self-respect, but a blague can be given up without a scruple.

   1855, Sketches of the Italian Revolution, page 78

   I wonder if the cholera-sick fishing harbour is so sweet, after all! Blague probably. Blague, blague! Brides, love, Naples, joie de vivre, ancient, modern, liberal, conservative, ideal, real, natural—blague. Blague all the way.

   1913, Lizzy Lind-af-Hageby, August Strindberg, the Spirit of Revolt

   The blague differs from the laughter of, say, Hugo's L'Homme qui rit, just as it is distinct from irony, which is never coarse or untrue, and indeed presupposes a whole shared system of values.

   1992, Philippe Hamon-Page, Expositions: Literature and Architecture in Nineteenth-century France, page 180

present singular third person blagues · participle present blaguing · participle past blagued · past blagued

1. To utter blague; to tell a falsehood that no one seriously believes; to bullshit.

   I left the ward with a heavy heart, though blagued to my mother later that he had been in good spirits .

   2013, Simon Halliday, City Centre, page 166

   3 more examples

   "Yes," said Farnham, "so the woman told me, and she added that they were authentic of the twelfth century. asked her if she could not throw off a century or two in consideration of the hard times, and she laughed, and said I blagued, and honestly she didn't know how old they were, but it was dro^le, tout de me^me, qu'on pu^t adorer un petit bon Dieu d'une laideur pareille."

   1899, John Hay, The Bread-winners: A Social Study, page 95

   "When he blagued just now about his crosses, I thought there was something in him,” whispered the Eastern hero to the painter.

   1901, Honoré de Balzac, A Start in Life, page 84

   After I had blagued and bullshitted Sandy and his wife for a while with various half-truths, red herrings. and false promises, and they had yelled at me, and I had yelled at them, they finally had to let me go, since Sandy, who is still quite slight of build and has replaced booze with weed, was not going to hit me, after all.

   2013, Geoff Berner, Festival Man