blatant
/ˈbleɪt(ə)nt
/- One of the soldiers responsible for this act of blatant provocation explained the rationale.
- He told a blatant lie to all students last time round.
- To credit the newspaper, they did retract the quote once it was exposed as a blatant lie.
Synonyms
- What are hundreds of children going to ask or think when they see this blatant advertisement for sexual equipment?
- Many lecturers will drop hints, ranging from subtle to blatant, as to what will be in the exam.
- This is a good time to show off a bit of yourself - either as blatant or subtle as you wish.
Derivatives
blatancy
/ noun ...- Given the various attempts, with increasing blatancy, to cook the upcoming election, I am reminded of an old comment on elections.
- He sees the weakness of the administration as being in its blatancy, yet this is testimony only to its strength.
- One thing that could be a bit off-putting is that he uses a great deal of harsh language and blatancy, which can often be offensive.
Origin
Late 16th century: perhaps an alteration of Scots blatand 'bleating'. It was first used by Spenser as an epithet for a thousand-tongued monster produced by Cerberus and Chimaera, a symbol of calumny, which he called the blatant beast. It was subsequently used to mean 'clamorous, offensive to the ear', first of people (mid 17th century), later of things (late 18th century); the sense 'unashamedly conspicuous' arose in the late 19th century.
A word first used by the Elizabethan poet Edmund Spenser (c.1552–99) in The Faerie Queene, as a description of a thousand-tongued monster, offspring of the three-headed dog Cerberus and the fire-breathing Chimera. Spenser used this monster as a symbol of slander, and called it ‘the blatant beast’. He may just have invented the word, or taken it from Scots blatand ‘bleating’. Blatant was subsequently used to mean ‘clamorous, offensive to the ear’, and did not take on its modern meaning ‘unashamedly conspicuous’ until the late 19th century.