blatant
English
editEtymology
editCoined by Edmund Spenser in 1596 in "blatant beast". Probably a variation of *blatand (Scots blaitand (“bleating”)), present participle of blate, a variation of bleat, equivalent to blate + -and. See bleat. In addition, it is suggested by Latin blatiō (“speak like a fool, prate”), which is rare, and so the similitude may be just coincidental.
Pronunciation
editAdjective
editblatant (comparative more blatant, superlative most blatant)
- Obvious, on show; unashamed; loudly obtrusive or offensive.
- Synonyms: ostentatious; see also Thesaurus:gaudy, Thesaurus:obvious
- Antonym: furtive
- 1855–1859, Washington Irving, The Life of George Washington:
- Glory, that blatant word, which haunts some military minds like the bray of the trumpet.
- 1910 July 23, G[ilbert] K[eith] Chesterton, “The Blue Cross”, in The Innocence of Father Brown, London, New York, N.Y.: Cassell and Company, published 1911, →OCLC:
- London died away in draggled taverns and dreary scrubs, and then was unaccountably born again in blazing high streets and blatant hotels.
- 1915, W[illiam] Somerset Maugham, chapter LXXVIII, in Of Human Bondage, New York, N.Y.: George H[enry] Doran Company, →OCLC:
- He tried to think out what those two men had which so strangely attracted her. They both had a vulgar facetiousness which tickled her simple sense of humour, and a certain coarseness of nature; but what took her perhaps was the blatant sexuality which was their most marked characteristic.
- 2013 June 7, Gary Younge, “Hypocrisy lies at heart of Manning prosecution”, in The Guardian Weekly, volume 188, number 26, page 18:
- WikiLeaks did not cause these uprisings but it certainly informed them. The dispatches revealed details of corruption and kleptocracy that many Tunisians suspected, […]. They also exposed the blatant discrepancy between the west's professed values and actual foreign policies.
- (archaic) Bellowing; disagreeably clamorous; sounding loudly and harshly.
- 1596, Edmund Spenser, “Book V, Canto XII”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC, stanza 37:
- A monster, which the Blatant beast men call.
- 1859, Richard Henry Dana Jr., To Cuba and Back:
- Harsh and blatant tones.
- 1918, Wilfred Owen, The Calls:
- A blatant bugle tears my afternoons. / Out clump the clumsy Tommies by platoons, / Trying to keep in step with rag-time tunes, / But I sit still; I've done my drill.
Derived terms
editTranslations
editobvious, on show
bellowing, clamoring; disagreeably clamorous
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Categories:
- English terms derived from Proto-Indo-European
- English terms derived from the Proto-Indo-European root *bʰleh₁- (bleat)
- English terms coined by Edmund Spenser
- English coinages
- English terms derived from Scots
- English terms suffixed with -and
- English terms derived from Latin
- English 2-syllable words
- English terms with IPA pronunciation
- English terms with audio links
- Rhymes:English/eɪtənt
- Rhymes:English/eɪtənt/2 syllables
- English lemmas
- English adjectives
- English terms with quotations
- English terms with archaic senses