bloat

[bloht]

SEE MORE SYNONYMS FOR bloat ON THESAURUS.COM

verb (used with object)

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.

verb (used without object)

to become swollen; be puffed out or dilated: The carcass started to bloat.

noun

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

1250–1300; earlier bloat (adj.) soft, puffy, Middle English blout < Old Norse blautr wet, soft

Synonyms for bloat

SEE MORE SYNONYMS FOR bloat ON THESAURUS.COM

1. swell, inflate, enlarge, balloon.

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2019

Related Words for bloat

inflate, swell, distend, dilate, balloon, bilge, enlarge, belly, billow, expand

Examples from the Web for bloat

Contemporary Examples of bloat

Part of the decomposition process causes bodies to bloat and blood to sometimes seep from the mouth.
Bulgaria’s Vampire Graveyards
Nina Strochlic
October 15, 2014
In the new, leaner strategy, any bloat has to go, even if it means reversing on a major earlier decision.
Bill Gates’ Internet Doomsday Prophesy Comes True
Kyle Chayka
July 17, 2014
On these bad days, I step out of bed and look in the mirror at the bloat in my face.
Inspired by Ashley Judd, My Own ‘Puffy Face’ Saga
Kelly Bergin
April 13, 2012

Historical Examples of bloat

The fly had pierced a blood vessel and would now bloat itself with blood.
The Lost Wagon
James Arthur Kjelgaard
The consekence was, he began to swell an bloat like a mad porkepine.
Letters of Major Jack Downing, of the Downingville Militia
Seba Smith
Is this a healthy fat which we are putting on him, or is it bloat?
A Guest at the Ludlow and Other Stories
Edgar 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 Powders
William A. Alcott

British Dictionary definitions for bloat

bloat

verb

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

noun

vet science an abnormal distention of the abdomen in cattle, sheep, etc, caused by accumulation of gas in the stomach

Word Origin for bloat

C17: probably related to Old Norse blautr soaked, Old English blāt pale

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Word Origin and History for bloat

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.

1860 as a disease of livestock, from bloat (v.). Meaning "bloatedness" is from 1905.

bloat in Medicine

bloat

[blōt]

n.

Abdominal distention due to swallowed air or intestinal gas production.

Related formsbloat′ed (blō′tĭd) adj.