Blatant Meaning
/ˈbleɪtənt/Definition, CEFR level C1, pronunciation, examples, and quiz.
Listen pronunciation
Definition
adjObvious, on show; unashamed; loudly obtrusive or offensive.
adjBellowing; disagreeably clamorous; sounding loudly and harshly.
Sentence Examples
A favorite tool in dealing with blatant racism is blatant ableism.
That's a blatant lie.
Synonyms & Antonyms
Synonyms:
Antonyms:
CEFR Practice Quiz
His ____ lie was obvious to everyone because the truth was clear.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
It was a ____ lie, and everyone in the room knew it immediately.
Word Origin & History
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 + -ant. See bleat. In addition, it is suggested by Latin blatiō (“speak like a fool, prate”), which is rare, and so the similitude may be just coincidental. Compare typologically Bulgarian вопиющ (vopijušt), Russian вопию́щий (vopijúščij) (akin to вопи́ть (vopítʹ)).
Literary Quotations & Historical Citations
"Glory, that blatant word, which haunts some military minds like the bray of the trumpet."
— 1855–1859, Washington Irving, The Life of George Washington:
"London died away in draggled taverns and dreary scrubs, and then was unaccountably born again in blazing high streets and blatant hotels."
— 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:
"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."
— 1915, W[illiam] Somerset Maugham, chapter LXXVIII, in Of Human Bondage, New York, N.Y.: George H[enry] Doran Company, →OCLC:
"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."
— 2013 June 7, Gary Younge, “Hypocrisy lies at heart of Manning prosecution”, in The Guardian Weekly, volume 188, number 26, archived from the original on 06 Jun 2019, page 18:
"A monster, which the Blatant beast men call."
— 1596, Edmund Spenser, “Book V, Canto XII”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC, stanza 37:
Explore More C1 Vocabulary Words
CEFR Practice Quiz
His ____ lie was obvious to everyone because the truth was clear.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
It was a ____ lie, and everyone in the room knew it immediately.