bluster

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English blusteren,^[2][3] probably borrowed from Middle Low German blüsteren (“to storm, blow violently”),^[3][4][5][2] a Low German origin that Etymonline and the American Heritage Dictionary accept.^[6][7] The OED calls the word of uncertain origin and says that evidence is wanting for how it came in about 1500.^[8] It doubts that the obsolete Middle English sense "to wander blindly" is connected with the later senses at all,^[8][9] and for that sense it reports Mätzner's comparison with Low German blustern, blistern (“to flutter or flap the wings in alarm”), perhaps a parallel imitation.^[8] For the later senses the OED points to relations in form and sense with blow, blaze and blast, comparing Old Norse blástr (“blast, breath, blowing, hissing”) and Gavin Douglas's form blasterand (“blustering”).^[8][10] Skeat compares East Frisian Low German blüstern (“to be tempestuous”).^[11][8][6] Etymonline thinks the Low German verb probably shares its source with blow, or is perhaps imitative;^[6] Hoad and the Oxford Dictionary of English call the word ultimately imitative,^[12][13] and Klein relates it to blister.^[14] Etymonline and the OED derive the noun from the verb.^[6][8]

Earliest recorded meaning

To wander or stray blindly or aimlessly: 1377, in Langland's Piers Plowman, in the B text.^[8] Barnhart and the Middle English Dictionary date the A text to before 1376.^[5][2] The OED wonders whether it meant rather to rush blindly,^[8] and its last record is of 1400, where the Middle English Dictionary has one of about 1426, in Audelay.^[8][2]

Semantic evolution

Cresswell gives shouting angrily as the first sense; the Middle English examples often pair the word with blow, as in Lydgate's "thei blew & blustred" and Hoccleve's "He bleew and blustred".^[2][15] Cresswell suggests that the wind sense being recorded later may be chance, since the word belongs with imitative words such as blow and blast.^[15] The OED, which treats the wandering sense apart, first records the wind in 1530 and the person who rages or makes empty threats before 1494.^[8] The noun followed the same path, first of a stormy blast (1582),^[8][3] then figuratively of a storm of anger, as in Shakespeare's Timon of Athens,^[8][16] and only from 1692 of loud, empty talk.^[8] Johnson (1755) gave "to roar as a storm" and then "to bully; to puff; to swagger" for the verb, and supposed that it came from blast.^[16] Barnhart records the derivatives blusterer in 1597 and blustery in 1739.^[5]

Timeline

• 1377 – to wander or stray blindly (now obsolete).^[8]
• c. 1400 – of people, to shout loudly and angrily.^[6][5][2] The OED first records people storming and uttering empty threats before 1494.^[8]
• 1463 – of the wind, to blow violently.^[5][2] The OED has this from 1530.^[8]
• 1530 – of people, to blow, breathe hard.^[8]
• before 1535 – transitive, to utter with violence and noise.^[8]
• 1549 – figurative, of the storm of the passions.^[8]
• 1582 – noun, boisterous blowing, a stormy blast.^[8][3]
• 1656 – noun, a noisy commotion, a violent disturbance.^[8]
• before 1661 – transitive, to force or drive by blustering.^[8]
• 1692 – noun, loud inflated talk, empty menace, swaggering.^[8] Etymonline has 1704.^[6]
• 1724 – noun, the blast of a wind instrument, or a similar sound.^[8]

Meanings

Verb

1. To talk loudly, boastfully or with empty threats; to swagger or bully: The landlord blustered about lawyers but soon gave up.^[4][3][8]
2. Of the wind or weather, to blow in noisy, stormy gusts: A cold wind blustered along the harbor wall.^[4][3][8]
3. To force someone into doing something by behaving in this way.^[4][8]
4. To say something loudly and violently, usually with out or forth.^[8][4]
5. (obsolete, 1377–1400) To wander or stray blindly or aimlessly.^[8][2][9]

Noun

1. Loud, boastful talk or behaviour; empty threats or protests: All his bluster faded when the bill arrived.^[4][3][8]
2. A strong, noisy wind; a gale.^[4][3][8]
3. Boisterous noise or violent commotion.^[3][8]
4. (rare) The blast of a wind instrument, or a sound like it.^[9][8]

Word family

• blusterer
• blusteringly
• blusterous
• blustery
• blusterously
• outbluster

Related words

• blow
• blast
• blaze
• blister
• blunder

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h 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 e f g h i Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
4. ^ a b c d e f g Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
5. ^ a b c d e Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
6. ^ a b c d e f Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
7. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
8. ^ 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 29 30 31 32 33 Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ a b c Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, 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. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
13. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
14. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
15. ^ a b Cresswell, Julia (2021), Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
16. ^ a b Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.