Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A babbling, foolish person.
  • noun Blather.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun One who talks nonsense in a blustering way; a blusterer.
  • noun Hence A good-for-nothing fellow; a “beat.”

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun Local slang, U. S. A blustering, talkative fellow.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun A voluble purveyor of nonsense.
  • noun Nonsense or blather.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun foolish gibberish

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[blather + dialectal skite, a contemptible person (from Middle English skite, diarrhea, from Old Norse skītr, excrement, from skīta, to defecate; see skei- in Indo-European roots).]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

blather + Old English skite, shit

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Examples

  • And then there are the funny ones such as ning nong, doofus, blatherskite.

    Etymology – the origins of words « Write Anything 2010

  • The Tyler Telegram humbly apologizes for having called that wide-lipped blatherskite, T. DeWitt Talmadge, "a religious faker."

    The Iconoclast David 2007

  • The Tyler Telegram humbly apologizes for having called that wide-lipped blatherskite, T. DeWitt Talmadge, "a religious faker."

    Archive 2007-05-01 David 2007

  • Perot, whose preferred rhetorical mode is the murky expostulation, is what used to be called a blatherskite.

    The Veep And The Blatherskite 2008

  • I think the word you are looking for is blatherskite.

    Think Progress » Highlights From Tony Snow’s First Press Gaggle 2006

  • In contrast, you are a blatherskite living on other human beings and giving them nothing as empty words in return, i.e. the lifestyle of a social parasite.

    Social progress is our Duty Serf 2006

  • Finally, several years later, to complete the circle of poisoned feelings, Mark Twain broke with Edward House: “Reid had labeled him correctly; he was a blatherskite.”

    Mark Twain Ron Powers 2005

  • Finally, several years later, to complete the circle of poisoned feelings, Mark Twain broke with Edward House: “Reid had labeled him correctly; he was a blatherskite.”

    Mark Twain Ron Powers 2005

  • "It's a thundering lie, you miserable old blatherskite!"

    Pudd'nhead Wilson 1955

  • "They are to elect honest men, with whom one can do business -- instead of the peasant saloon keepers and blatherskite labor leaders whom they choose at present."

    Samuel the Seeker Upton Sinclair 1923

Comments

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  • Bartleby says:

    NOUN: Unintelligible or foolish talk: babble, blather,double talk, gabble, gibberish, jabber, jabberwocky, jargon, nonsense, prate, prattle, twaddle

    May 20, 2007

  • "Quit yo' blatherskite, foo!"

    - Mr. T

    May 21, 2007

  • Blathering Blatherskite. For you GizmoDuck fans out there.

    June 9, 2007

  • There's a sports field in Alice Springs, NT, Australia, called Blatherskite Park. If the coach's pre-game talk is rubbish, I guess we know why.

    I think a blatherskite can also be the person who prattles.

    November 23, 2007

  • A very useful, polite, and pretentious expansion of BS. I don't think that's actually its origin, but as far as I've been able to tell they are interchangeable.

    March 21, 2009

  • Another meaning applies here:

    "The little engraver betrayed no particular discomfort under this basilisk stare and went on telling me about the response when he had published the bound edition of the Encyclopedia—the King had somehow happened to see the plates of the "Womb" section and had ordered those pages to be torn out of the book, the ignorant German blatherskite!—but when the waiter came to take his order, he ordered both a very expensive wine and a large bottle of good whisky."

    —Diana Gabaldon, An Echo in the Bone (New York: Delacorte Press, 2009), 644

    March 17, 2010

  • Nickname for the Ruddy Duck.

    February 25, 2024