noun
verb
Etymology
Origin of blarney
First recorded in 1760–70; after the hamlet Blarney, in Ireland; see Blarney stone
Explanation
Blarney refers to smooth, flattering talk and actions meant to win someone over, like when someone sweet-talks their way into getting an extra dessert. The word blarney comes from Blarney Castle in Ireland, where kissing the Blarney Stone is said to give the gift of persuasive speech. This term describes gentle and flattering words used to charm or influence someone. An example of blarney could be telling your friend they make the best cookies ever, hoping they'll bake more for you. Politicians are often known for their blarney, using it to gain support and votes.
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:
The man known for his charm and Irish blarney — a gift for the gab — was an ardent advocate of stronger U.S.-Canadian relations.
From Seattle Times ● Feb. 29, 2024
“Joyride,” a grievously schematic blend of odd-couple comedy and life-affirming road movie, traverses the Irish countryside with a small degree of charm and a boatload of blarney.
From New York Times ● Dec. 22, 2022
That’s Digger Phelps, Irish basketball coach with similar blarney skills to Lasorda’s.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jan. 10, 2021
With his Gaelic good looks, charisma and Irish blarney, he set up a music club, the Scene, in London’s Soho district.
From Washington Post ● Apr. 24, 2020
“You are right to laugh, Captain Short. For a while there, I did believe in all that under-the-rainbow crock-of-gold blarney, but now I know better. Now I know about the hostage fund.”
From "Artemis Fowl" by Eoin Colfer
But their handiwork caught the eye of another Democrat, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, who had come into the Nixon White House as a presidential assistant, and who blarneyed Nixon into endorsing the idea.
From Time Magazine Archive
No creature like the one that blarneyed Mother Eve could be here!
From Attention Saint Patrick by Murray Leinster
Without any influence whatever, save his pleasing address and his wide education, he blarneyed the State Department out of a consulate.
From The Goose Girl by Harold MacGrath
He worried through arithmetic and algebra and blarneyed his French and German tutors into making them believe he knew more than he did, but the purely scientific aspects of learning did not interest him.
From Paradise Garden The Satirical Narrative of a Great Experiment by George Gibbs
She presented Joy-of-Life with a banana which she had blarneyed from our Italian fruit-vender, and gave me a little jar of cream, begged or bullied from the milkman in the early dawn.
From Sigurd Our Golden Collie and Other Comrades of the Road by Katharine Lee Bates
Despite blarneying speeches by Evita, a rank & file strike started.
From Time Magazine Archive
The men found it sufficiently wonderful to satisfy even Freckles, who had forgotten he was ever sore or stiff, and coddled over it with every blarneying term of endearment he knew.
From Freckles by Gene Stratton-Porter
You don't mean what you say one bit, and it is a relief to me to know that it is all flummery--you silly, hot-pated, blarneying Pat!
From My Lords of Strogue, Vol. I (of III) A Chronicle of Ireland, from the Convention to the Union by Lewis Wingfield
I think I have heard something like that before, my blarneying Plantagenet.
From The Iron Game A Tale of the War by Henry F. (Henry Francis) Keenan
"Now it's you who are blarneying, dad!" cried Susie, but she dimpled with pleasure nevertheless, and so did Nell.
From Affairs of State by Burton Egbert Stevenson
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.
