bland
adjective
pleasantly gentle or agreeable.
bland
1 American
[bland]
/ blænd /
adjective
-
blander,
comparative
-
blandest
superlative
-
pleasantly gentle or agreeable.
a bland, affable manner.
-
soothing or balmy, as air.
a bland southern breeze.
- Antonyms:
- harsh
-
nonirritating, as food or medicines.
a bland diet.
- Antonyms:
- irritating
-
not highly flavored; mild; tasteless.
a bland sauce.
-
lacking in special interest, liveliness, individuality, etc.; insipid; dull.
a bland young man; a bland situation comedy.
-
unemotional, indifferent, or casual.
his bland acknowledgment of guilt.
Bland
2
American
[bland]
/ blænd /
noun
bland
British
/ blænd /
adjective
-
devoid of any distinctive or stimulating characteristics; uninteresting; dull
bland food
-
gentle and agreeable; suave
-
(of the weather) mild and soothing
-
unemotional or unmoved
a bland account of atrocities
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Adjectives
Etymology
Origin of bland
First recorded in 1590–1600, bland is from the Latin word blandus of a smooth tongue, pleasant, soothing
Explanation
When you have a nasty cold and you’re very congested, food can taste unappealingly bland. That means dull, flavorless, or just plain “blah.” Bland comes to us from the Latin word blandus, meaning “mild, smooth, flattering, alluring.” Funny, because today you wouldn't say there's anything "alluring" about something bland. People still use bland to mean pleasant and tranquil, but it more often has a negative connotation. Use it to describe plain old oatmeal before you’ve added brown sugar and berries to it, or to depict the forgettable, uninteresting personality of the lunch lady who served it to you.
Vocabulary lists containing bland
The Vocabulary.com Top 1000
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100 SAT Words Beginning with "B"
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"Mother Tongue" by Amy Tan
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
At the time, those words were a benign, almost bland sentiment about academic freedom.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 22, 2026
Speaking of unwatchable, if you’re over the age of, say, 11, feel free to skip the utterly generic and bland “The Mandalorian and Grogo,” the worst “Star Wars” spinoff movie yet.
From MarketWatch ● Aug. 31, 2026
What’s getting attention, however, is not bland, consultant-approved talk about the price of groceries.
From Salon ● Aug. 31, 2026
Playing a therapist, it reflects the user’s apparent sentiments and asks bland questions, leading people to project wisdom.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 19, 2026
I may never find out what’s happened to him, she thought, as one of the blue fairies rocked back and forth on a twig above her, its face bland and happy.
From "Inkheart" by Cornelia Funke
Mike Bland, a spokesperson for the Los Angeles Police Department, said on Tuesday that the department had not received a report about the vandalism.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 2, 2026
“We’re in this together. We’re fully backing Scott,” Bland said.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 5, 2026
“We evacuated out of an abundance of caution,” Bland said.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 27, 2026
Veteran Englishman Richard Bland cashed in on the romance of his one DP World Tour victory, the 2021 British Masters, which effectively earned him an invitation to play LIV tournaments.
From BBC ● Apr. 30, 2026
They set it in the water and a moment later Bland came out, with the sculls.
From "The Sound and the Fury" by William Faulkner
Pressure from these investors may also add to the US app feeling "blander" said Mr Navarra.
From BBC ● Dec. 19, 2025
Consumers, bored by the softer, blander Red Delicious variety that had ruled grocery aisles for decades, discovered an apple that was sweet and so texturally satisfying they never looked back.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 15, 2025
The flavors of zucchini and yellow summer squash are similar, with the yellow versions being a little blander, and sometimes less firm in texture.
From Washington Times ● Jul. 27, 2023
By the time he unveiled the design at the International Astronautical Congress in Guadalajara, Mexico, the name had changed to a blander one: Interplanetary Transport System.
From New York Times ● Apr. 20, 2023
Immediately, her mother and sister were there to interpose a blander timetable.
From "Atonement" by Ian McEwan
Temperatures are dropping, grocery prices keep climbing, and there’s a small, almost alchemical satisfaction in transforming the blandest, cheapest grain in the aisle into a breakfast worth lingering over.
From Salon ● Nov. 13, 2025
By contrast, Darren Franich of Entertainment Weekly described the opening scene as "the blandest possible orientation, Epic Fantasy for Dummies" and said the good news is that "the beginning is the worst part."
From Reuters ● Aug. 19, 2022
The instinct of most corporate leaders is to seek safety by staying with the herd and issuing only the blandest possible statements, he said.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 9, 2021
As a protagonist, Sandy is the blandest of heroes, “a middle person, a middleman,” Lethem writes.
From Washington Post ● Nov. 9, 2020
Those self-important women gained local immortality for the blandest, the most timid of eccentricities—walking a cat on a dog’s lead, riding about on a man’s bike, being seen with a sandwich in the street.
From "Atonement" by Ian McEwan
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
