bloviate
Americanverb (used without object)
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of bloviate
1850–55, pseudo-Latin alteration of blow 2 to boast; popularized by Warren G. Harding
Explanation
To bloviate is to talk, but not just to chat. To bloviate means to go on and on and on and on, usually in a pompous way. Can you hear the blow in the word bloviate? That's a clue that someone bloviating is blowing some serious hot air. When someone bloviates, he is speaking in an empty, pretentious, full-of-himself manner. This word is often associated with politicians, who probably invented bloviating. When someone is talking a lot and saying a little, they're bloviating.
Vocabulary lists containing bloviate
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Words Coined or Popularized by Presidents
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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:
Actors jockey, directors bloviate, writers fume at liberties taken.
From New York Times ● Apr. 20, 2023
Now, the “Peanut Gallery” will grouse and bloviate that all of this is the district’s fault; that it has a spending problem.
From Washington Times ● Oct. 16, 2018
Example: It’s tough to watch them bloviate about sweeping change when our internal processes are still such a mess.
From Time ● Jul. 27, 2015
When we bloviate or scold, it also undercuts what little authority we have.
From Salon ● Apr. 15, 2013
Now we have to sit around all summer and listen to LeBron James bloviate about the inevitability of his wonderfulness.
From Seattle Times ● Jul. 1, 2012
While Trump bloviated about tariffs, the Hispanic Republican Club chair nibbled on dessert.
From Los Angeles Times ● Feb. 25, 2026
Last weekend, Cruz tweeted that he proudly wore Boehner’s "drunken, bloviated scorn."
From Fox News ● Apr. 14, 2021
What, besides the bloviated tweets that will accompany even the most modest ratings victory?
From Salon ● Jan. 1, 2017
“The majority of men do it, and all would be mortified if others heard their bloviated stories.”
From Washington Times ● Oct. 9, 2016
His teenage daughter has taken his doctrines to heart and wants to actually pursue the radical actions that he only bloviated about.
From New York Times ● Feb. 11, 2016
Some might find it humanizing—proof that below the bloviating gestalt, the president can become awed by existential futility.
From Slate ● Jun. 11, 2026
“Hamnet,” by contrast, is to feeling what Polonius, the famously bloviating cliché-monger in “Hamlet,” is to wisdom.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 27, 2025
The "Call Her Daddy" conversation was not the contentious tête-à-tête the chattering class has come to expect after decades of cable news bloviating somehow came to represent meaningful political coverage.
From Salon ● Oct. 8, 2024
Yes, Frumkin accomplishes this by holding an unflattering mirror to bloviating billionaires, scam start-ups and the wellness industrial complex, but he also does it by digging into our confidence in our own morality.
From Washington Post ● Mar. 7, 2023
His passion when bloviating was furious and terrible to look upon; but there was nothing to it more than sound and pretense.
From The Vigilance Committee of 1856 by James O'Meara
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Get a wordDefinitions 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.
