blatant

English

Etymology

Coined 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.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈbleɪtənt/, enPR: blā'tənt

• Audio (US)

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• Rhymes: -eɪtənt

Adjective

blatant (comparative more blatant, superlative most blatant)

1. 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.

2. (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

• blatantly

Translations