Meanings
present singular third person bloviates · participle present bloviating · participle past bloviated · past bloviated
- USintransitiveTo speak or discourse at length in a pompous or boastful manner.
His passion when bloviating was furious and terrible to look upon; but there was nothing to it more than sound and pretense.
1887, James O'Meara, The Vigilance Committee of '563 more examples
Peter P. Low, Esq., will with open throat…bloviate about the farmers being taxed upon the full value of their farms, while bankers are released from taxation.
1845 October 14, Huron Reflector, Norwalk, Ohio“The cost of appearing with this bloviating ignoramus is obvious, it seems to me,” he said on “This Week,” the ABC News program.
2012 May 31, Clyde Haberman, quoting George F. Will, “Trying to Solve the Great Trump Mystery”, in The New York Times, archived from the original on 25 Jun 2024And in turn, more complex ones: could his son have become Boris Johnson, bloviating commentator and one-time prime minister of Britain, without one [a nanny]?
2023 April 29, Lou Stoppard, “Inside the world of the elite nanny”, in FT Weekend, London: The Financial Times Ltd., →ISSN, →OCLC
Origin
1845, US, Ohio, from blow (“speak idly, boast”) + -i- + -ate, by analogy with deviate.
Full word history & related roots →Translations
Dutch oreren
- orerento speak or discourse at length in a pompous or boastful manner
German schwafeln
- schwafelnto speak or discourse at length in a pompous or boastful manner
Italian concionare
- concionareto speak or discourse at length in a pompous or boastful manner
Romanian a te lungi, a te lungi cu vorba
- a te lungito speak or discourse at length in a pompous or boastful manner
- a te lungi cu vorbato speak or discourse at length in a pompous or boastful manner
Russian почесать язы́к
- почесать язы́к (počesatʹ jazýk)to speak or discourse at length in a pompous or boastful manner
Rhymes & wordplay
Anagrams
Cite this entry
bloviate. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/bloviate
“bloviate.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/bloviate. Accessed November 3, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “bloviate,” accessed November 3, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/bloviate.
Source: bloviate on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.