a. Also 6–7 blattant. [Apparently invented by Spenser, and used by him as an epithet of the thousand-tongued monster begotten of Cerberus and Chimæra, the ‘blatant’ or ‘blattant beast,’ by which he symbolized calumny. It has been suggested that he intended it as an archaic form of bleating (of which the 16th c. Sc. was blaitand), but this seems rather remote from the sense in which he used it. The L. blatīre to babble, may also be compared. (The a was probably short with Spenser: it is now always made long.)]
1. In the phrase ‘blat(t)ant beast,’ taken from Spenser (cf. F. Q., V. xii. 37, 41; VI. i. 7, iii. 24, ix. 2, X. 1, xii. advt., xii. 2): see above.
1596. Spenser, F. Q., V. xii. 37. Unto themselves they [Envie and Detraction] gotten had A monster which the blatant beast men call, A dreadful feend of gods and men ydrad. Ibid., VI. i. 7. ‘The blattant beast,’ quoth he, ‘I doe pursew.’
1602. Return fr. Parnass., V. iv. (Arb.), 69. The Ile of Dogges, where the blattant beast doth rule and raigne.
1636. Fitz-Geffrey, Bless. Birthd. (1881), 128. That blatant beast So belched forth from his blaspheaming brest.
a. 1658. Cleveland, Gen. Poems (1677), 60. Cub of the Blatant Beast.
1768. Tucker, Lt. Nat., I. 596. The blatant beast … with his unbridled tongue.
1812. Byron, Ch. Har., I. xxvi. (Orig. MS.). Then burst the blatant beast [note, a figure for the mob], and roar’d, and raged.
1856. Miss Mulock, J. Halifax (ed. 17), 340. He was one of the most ‘blatant-beasts’ of the Reign of Terror.
2. fig. Of persons or their words: Noisy; offensively or vulgarly clamorous; bellowing.
1656. Blount, Glossogr., Blatant, babling, twatling.
1674. Marvell, Reh. Transp., II. 371. You are a Blatant Writer and a Labrant.
1821. Southey, Vis. Judgem., x. Wks. X. 223. Maledictions, and blatant tongues, and viperous hisses.
1872. Bagehot, Physics & Pol. (1876), 92. Up rose a blatant Radical.
1874. H. Reynolds, John Bapt., viii. 515. A blatant, insolent materialism threatens to engulf moral distinctions.
b. Clamorous, making itself heard.
1790. Cowper, Odyss., VII. 267. Not the less Hear I the blatant appetite demand Due sustenance.
1863. Geo. Eliot, Romola (1880), I. II. xxix. 359. An orator who tickled the ears of the people blatant for some unknown good.
1866. Whipple, Char. & Charac. Men, 166. All agree in a common contempt blatant or latent.
1867. J. Macgregor, Voy. Alone, 65. In all our great towns there is a mass of human beings whose want, misery, and filth are more patent to the eye, and blatant to the ear, and pungent to the nostrils than in almost any other towns in the world.
3. Bleating, bellowing (or merely, loud-voiced).
1791. Cowper, Iliad, XXIII. 39. Many a sheep and blatant goat.
1866. J. Rose, Ecl. & Georg. Virg., 69. Rooks rejoicing, and the blatant herds.
b. Noisily resonant, loud.
1816. Scott, Old Mort., xiv. A blatant noise which rose behind them.
1867. Cornh. Mag., Jan., 30. The vibrating and blatant powers of a hundred instruments.
† B. as sb. One who has a blatant tongue. Obs.
1610. Folkingham, Art of Survey, Introd. Poem. Couch rabid Blatants, silence Surquedry.
