bloat
- to expand or distend, as with air, water, etc.; cause to swell: Overeating bloated their bellies.
- to puff up; make vain or conceited: The promotion has bloated his ego to an alarming degree.
- to cure (fishes) as bloaters.
- to become swollen; be puffed out or dilated: The carcass started to bloat.
- Also called hoven. Veterinary Pathology. (in cattle, sheep, and horses) a distention of the rumen or paunch or of the large colon by gases of fermentation, caused by eating ravenously of green forage, especially legumes.
- a person or thing that is bloated.
- bloater(defs 1, 2).
Origin of bloat
Synonyms
See more synonyms for bloat on Thesaurus.comExamples from the Web for bloat
Contemporary Examples
Part of the decomposition process causes bodies to bloat and blood to sometimes seep from the mouth.
In the new, leaner strategy, any bloat has to go, even if it means reversing on a major earlier decision.
On these bad days, I step out of bed and look in the mirror at the bloat in my face.
Historical Examples
The fly had pierced a blood vessel and would now bloat itself with blood.
The Lost WagonJames Arthur Kjelgaard
The consekence was, he began to swell an bloat like a mad porkepine.
Is this a healthy fat which we are putting on him, or is it bloat?
A Guest at the Ludlow and Other StoriesEdgar Wilson (Bill) Nye
Should you be still anxious to arrive at Bloat, you cannot do better than——'
Berry And Co.Dornford Yates
But her distress was still very great, and her feet soon began to turn purple, and she began to bloat in her stomach and bowels.
Forty Years in the Wilderness of Pills and PowdersWilliam A. Alcott
bloat
- to swell or cause to swell, as with a liquid, air, or wind
- to become or cause to be puffed up, as with conceit
- (tr) to cure (fish, esp herring) by half-drying in smoke
- vet science an abnormal distention of the abdomen in cattle, sheep, etc, caused by accumulation of gas in the stomach
Word Origin
Word Origin and History for bloat
v.
1670s, "to cause to swell" (earlier, in reference to cured fish, "to cause to be soft," 1610s), from now obsolete bloat (adj.), attested from c.1300 as "soft, flabby, flexible, pliable," but by 17c. meaning "puffed up, swollen." Perhaps from a Scandinavian source akin to Old Norse blautr "soaked, soft from being cooked in liquid" (cf. Swedish blöt fisk "soaked fish"), possibly from Proto-Germanic *blaut-, from PIE *bhleu- "to swell, well up, overflow," an extension of root *bhel- (2) "to blow, inflate, swell" (see bole).
Influenced by or combined with Old English blawan "blow, puff." Figurative use by 1711. Intransitive meaning "to swell, to become swollen" is from 1735. Related: Bloated; bloating.
n.
1860 as a disease of livestock, from bloat (v.). Meaning "bloatedness" is from 1905.
bloat
(blōt)- Abdominal distention due to swallowed air or intestinal gas production.