different between blather vs rigmarole

English

Etymology 1

From Middle English bletheren, bloderen, from Old Norse blaðra (“to speak inarticulately, talk nonsense”). Cognate with Scots blether, bladder, bledder (“to blather”), dialectal German bladdern (“to talk nonsense, blather”), Norwegian bladra (“to babble, speak imperfectly”), Icelandic blaðra (“to twaddle”).

Alternative forms

• blether (Northern England, Scotland, Northern Ireland)

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /blæð?(?)/
• Rhymes: -æð?(r)

Verb

blather (third-person singular simple present blathers, present participle blathering, simple past and past participle blathered)

1. (intransitive, derogatory) To talk rapidly without making much sense.
   • 2001, Richard Flanagan, “The Pot-Bellied Seahorse”, in Gould’s Book of Fish, New York, N.Y.: Grove Atlantic, 2014, section 5:^[1]

     On and on he blathered, taking refuge in the one thing he felt lent him superiority: words.

2. (transitive, derogatory) To say (something foolish or nonsensical); to say (something) in a foolish or overly verbose way.
   • 1929, Eugene O’Neill, Dynamo, New York, N.Y.: Liveright, Act I, scene i, page 31:^[2]

     Then, just before the wedding, the old man feels he’s honor bound to tell his future son-in-law the secret of his past; so the damned idiot blathers the whole story of his killing the man and breaking jail!

   • 1974, Robert Pirsig, chapter 18, in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, New York, N.Y.: William Morrow, part 3, page 214:^[3]

     […] the church attitude has never been that a teacher should be allowed to blather anything that comes into his head without any accountability at all.

Derived terms

Translations

Noun

blather (uncountable)

1. (derogatory) Nonsensical or foolish talk.
   • 1897, G. A. Henty, With Moore at Corunna, New York: Scribner, Chapter 1, p. 16,^[4]

     That is the worst of being in an Irish regiment, nothing can be done widout ever so much blather;

   • 1922, Rafael Sabatini, Captain Blood, New York: Grosset & Dunlap, Chapter 23, p. 265,^[5]

     Will you cease your blather of mutiny and treason and courts-martial?

   • 1995, Rohinton Mistry, A Fine Balance, Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, Part 5, p. 280,^[6]

     With years of proofreading under my belt, I knew exactly the blather and bluster favoured by professional politicians.

Synonyms

• See also Thesaurus:chatter

Translations

Etymology 2

Noun

blather (plural blathers)

1. Obsolete form of bladder.
   • 1596, Charles Fitzgeoffrey, Sir Francis Drake His Honorable Lifes Commendation, and His Tragicall Deathes Lamentation, Oxford: Joseph Barnes,^[7]

     […] on Vlisses Circe did bestowe

     A blather, where the windes imboweld were,

Anagrams

• Barthel, Halbert, halbert

English

Alternative forms

• rigamarole

Etymology

From ragman roll (“long list; catalogue”).

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /????m????l/
• (US) IPA^(key): /????m??o?l/

Noun

rigmarole (countable and uncountable, plural rigmaroles)

1. A long and complicated procedure that seems tiresome or pointless.

2. Nonsense; confused and incoherent talk.
   • 1847, Thomas De Quincey, Secret Societies (published in Tait's Edinburgh Magazine)

     Often one's dear friend talks something which one scruples to call rigmarole.

   • 1854, Henry David Thoreau, Walden, ch VII:

     While you are planting the seed, he cries -- "Drop it, drop it -- cover it up, cover it up -- pull it up, pull it up, pull it up." But this was not corn, and so it was safe from such enemies as he. You may wonder what his rigmarole, his amateur Paganini performances on one string or on twenty, have to do with your planting, and yet prefer it to leached ashes or plaster.

   • 1880, Rosina Bulwer Lytton, A Blighted Life, sxn 4:

     His reply did not even allude to the subject, but was a rigmarole about the weather; as if he had been writing to an idiot, who did not require a rational answer to any question they had asked.

   • 1895, Robert Louis Stevenson, The Valima Letters, ch XIX:

     In comes Mitaiele to Lloyd, and told some rigmarole about Paatalise (the steward's name) wanting to go and see his family in the bush.

   • 1910, A. E. W. Mason, At the Villa Rose, ch XVII:

     "Quite so," said Adèle comfortably. "Now let us be sensible and dine. We can amuse ourselves with mademoiselle's rigmaroles afterwards."

   • 1915, John Buchan, The Thirty-Nine Steps, ch 1:

     He seemed to brace himself for a great effort, and then started on the queerest rigmarole.

Translations

Adjective

rigmarole

1. Prolix; tedious.

Further reading

• “rigmarole”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–present.