bleat

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English bleten,^[2][3] inherited from Old English blǣtan,^[4][5][6][7] from Proto-Germanic *blētijaną (“to bleat”).^[1] It is cognate with Old High German blāzan (“to bleat”) and Dutch blaten.^[5][8][7] The Oxford dictionaries, Hoad, Weekley and Etymonline call it imitative.^{[5][9][7][10][3]} Etymonline, Skeat and Merriam-Webster Unabridged compare Latin fleō (“to weep”) and verbs meaning to bleat in Russian and Old Church Slavonic,^[3][11][12] and Wiktionary traces it to Proto-Indo-European *bʰleh₁- (“to howl, cry, bleat”).^[1] Barnhart instead gives *bhléd-.^[8] Merriam-Webster Unabridged also relates it to Old English bellan (“to roar”), the source of bellow.^[12]

Earliest recorded meaning

To make the cry of a sheep or goat: before 800 in Barnhart.^[8] The OED's first quotation is an Old English riddle, whose speaker says Ic blǣte swā gāt, "I bleat like a goat".^[5][4]

Semantic evolution

Already in Ælfric's Grammar it was thought very foolish that a man should bark or bleat, but the sense of a human voice is not itself recorded until before 1563, in Becon, used with contempt.^[4][5][13] From there it came to mean saying something feebly or foolishly; a transitive use, to babble, dates from 1692, and to give forth with a bleat from 1707.^[5] Sounds likened to the cry, such as a foghorn's, are recorded from 1880.^[5][12] The Middle English verb appears in the Ormulum and in Sumer is icumen in, and the Middle English Dictionary also has it of deer.^[2][8] In Middle English the noun blet meant a ewe, in Barnhart's 1382 quotation, a sense the Shorter Oxford gives as "bleater".^[8][13] The noun for the cry itself is dated variously: before 1513, of the human voice, in Dunbar;^[5] 1508 in Merriam-Webster Unabridged;^[12] about 1500 in Etymonline;^[3] and only 1590 or 1600, in Much Ado about Nothing, for the animal's cry.^[5][8] In the 20th century the noun became colloquial for a feeble complaint, from 1916 in the OED and 1910, in Australia, in Green's Dictionary of Slang.^[5][14] Slang also used the verb for complaining or whingeing, at first among soldiers according to Green.^[14]

Timeline

• before 800 – to cry, of a sheep or goat.^[8][5]
• 1382 – noun blet, a ewe.^[8]
• before 1513 – noun, a sound like a bleat from a human voice.^[5]
• before 1563 – of a person, to speak feebly or foolishly.^[5][13]
• 1600 – noun, the cry of a sheep, goat or calf.^[5][8]
• 1692 – transitive, to babble, to prate.^[5]
• 1862 – noun, a similar cry, especially that of a snipe.^[5]
• 1880 – of sounds likened to the cry.^[5]
• 1916 – noun, a feeble complaint.^[5] Green's Dictionary of Slang has it from 1910.^[14]

Meanings

Verb

1. Of a sheep, goat or calf: to make its natural cry.^[15][12][5]
2. To make a similar sound: A horn bleated somewhere across the harbour.^[12][5]
3. To speak feebly, or to whine or complain: Stop bleating about the rent.^[15][5][14]
4. To say something feebly or as if with a bleat: He bleated out an apology.^[13][5]

Noun

1. The cry of a sheep, goat or calf.^[15][12][5]
2. Any similar sound.^[15][12][5]
3. A weak complaint, or foolish talk.^[15][12][13]

Word family

• bleater
• bleatingly
• outbleat

Related words

• blat
• blare
• bellow

Usage notes

A dialect adjective bleat, "cold, bleak", with a noun for bleak weather, was used in Gloucestershire, Kent, Surrey, Sussex and Wiltshire.^[16]

References

1. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
3. ^ a b c d Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote (1898), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Toller, T. Northcote (1921), Supplement
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
7. ^ a b c Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
8. ^ a b c d e f g h i Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
9. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
10. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
11. ^ Skeat, Walter W. (1911), A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, new ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
12. ^ a b c d e f g h i Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
13. ^ a b c d e Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
14. ^ a b c d Green, Jonathon (2010), Green's Dictionary of Slang, London: Chambers; digital ed. 2016–, https://greensdictofslang.com
15. ^ a b c d e Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
16. ^ 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)