or blather, subs. (Scots and U.S.A.).—Nonsense; vapid talk; voluble chatter. Hence also BLETHERING, and as adjective = volubly, foolishly talkative: cf. BLETHERSKATE.
b. 1759, d. 1796. BURNS, Tam Samson’s Elegy, st. 12.
| Yon auld gray stane, amang the heather, | |
| Marks out his head; | |
| Whare Burns has wrote in rhyming BLETHER, | |
| Tam Samson’s dead! |
d. 1796. Burns, Holy Fair, st. 8.
| An’ some are busy BLETHRIN’ | |
| Right loud that day. |
1816. SCOTT, Old Mortality, xiv. ‘I hae been clean spoilt, just wi’ listening to twa BLETHERING auld wives.’
1883. HAWLEY SMART, Hard Lines, vi. He had brought this BLETHERING Irishman down here, and deluged him with punch for the express purpose of turning him inside out.
1886. Pall Mall Gazette, 3 May, 6, 2. Havelock’s florid adjurations to his men, the grim veterans of the 78th, bluntly characterized as BLETHER.
