Etymologically
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bladder

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Pronunciation

  • UK: /ˈblædə/[1]
  • US: /ˈblædɚ/[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English bladdre, earlier bladre (about 1150),[2][3] inherited from Old English blǣdre, also blǣddre, with the Anglian form blēdre,[4][5][2] inherited from Proto-Germanic *blēdrǭ.[6][7] It is cognate with Old Saxon blādara, Old High German blātara (modern Blatter), Dutch blaar and Old Norse blaðra.[4][2][8][9] The Germanic word is formed from the stem of the verb blow and an instrumental suffix that corresponds to Latin -trum and Ancient Greek -τρον (-tron),[4][10][9][11] so that it means "that which is blown out",[5] perhaps from the bladder's capacity for inflation.[12] Watkins traces it to Proto-Indo-European *bhlē- (“to blow”).[13][14] The Old English variation between blǣdre and blēdre survived in Middle English bladder and bledder; the Scots blether and blather may come from Old Norse, but the OED thinks them more likely an instance of the same alternation between the consonants d and th as in father and mother.[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

The bag that holds the urine: in the Old English Epinal Glossary,[4] which Barnhart dates to about 700.[2] Old English also used the word for a blister, pimple or pustule, as in Ælfric's version of Exodus.[5][4] Ayto says that it was for a long time applied only to the urinary bladder.[12]

Semantic evolution

The prepared bladder of an animal, blown up and used as a float, as the bag of a simple bagpipe or as a container, is recorded from about 1225, in the Ancrene Riwle;[4][14] Etymonline links these extended senses to the use of animal bladders for buoyancy and storage.[14] Because a blown bladder is big but empty, the word came to mean a pompous, self-important person (1579) and anything inflated and hollow (1589).[4] Johnson (1755) noted that the bladder "is often filled with wind, to which allusions are frequently made".[15] From 1661 it was used of any membranous bag in the body, as in gall bladder and air bladder, and since 1702 of a bubble or air-filled vesicle.[4][16] The sense "blister" was obsolete by the late 19th century.[4] Slang added a bald or fat person (1864), a football in Australia (1906) and, in the United States, a newspaper, especially a poor one, which the OED records from 1936 and Green's Dictionary of Slang from 1842.[4][17] In the dialects of Yorkshire and Lancashire a bladder or blether was a football, and in Northumberland a bagpipe or a purse.[18] A verb bladder, to swell out (c. 1440) and then to inflate or puff up (1610), is now archaic.[4][16]

Timeline

  • c. 700 – the urinary bladder, in the Epinal Glossary.[4][2]
  • Old English – a blister or pustule (obsolete by 1880).[4][5]
  • c. 1225 – an animal's bladder used as a float or container.[4]
  • c. 1440 – verb, to swell out like a bladder.[4]
  • 1579 – a pompous person, a windbag.[4]
  • 1589 – anything inflated and hollow.[4]
  • 1661 – any membranous bag in the body, as the gall bladder.[4]
  • 1702 – a bubble or air-filled vesicle.[4]
  • 1769 – bladder used as an airtight covering.[4]
  • 1842 – US slang, a newspaper.[17]
  • 1864 – slang, a bald-headed or fat person.[4]

Meanings

Noun

  1. The sac in the body of humans and other animals in which urine collects before it is passed; the urinary bladder.[19][16][4]
  2. Any membranous sac in an animal that holds fluid or gas, such as the gallbladder or the swim bladder of a fish.[19][16][4]
  3. An inflatable bag inside something, such as the inner bag of a football or the bag of a bagpipe.[19][16][4]
  4. A blister, cyst or similar sac filled with fluid.[19]
  5. (botany) A hollow, air-filled sac in certain plants and seaweeds, as in bladderwort and bladder wrack.[19][4]
  6. An animal's bladder prepared for use as a container: a bladder of lard.[16][4]

Verb

  1. (archaic) To puff up; to inflate.[16][4]

Word family

  • bladderlike
  • bladderless
  • bladdernut
  • bladderwort
  • bladdery
  • gallbladder
  • bladderpod
  • air bladder

References

  1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
  3. ^ Barnhart, Robert K., ed. (1995), The Barnhart Concise Dictionary of Etymology, New York: HarperCollins
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z 27 28 Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
  5. ^ a b c d Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote (1898), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Toller, T. Northcote (1921), Supplement
  6. ^ Orel, Vladimir (2003), A Handbook of Germanic Etymology, Leiden / Boston: Brill
  7. ^ Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Germanisches Wörterbuch, 5th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling
  8. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
  9. ^ a b Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
  10. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  11. ^ Skeat, Walter W. (1911), A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, new ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
  12. ^ a b Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
  13. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
  14. ^ a b c Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  15. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
  16. ^ a b c d e f g Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  17. ^ a b Green, Jonathon (2010), Green's Dictionary of Slang, London: Chambers; digital ed. 2016–, https://greensdictofslang.com
  18. ^ Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)
  19. ^ a b c d e Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins