Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • intransitive verb To utter without thinking; blurt.
  • intransitive verb To sound or produce harshly or raucously.
  • intransitive verb To cry, especially like a sheep; bleat.
  • intransitive verb To make a harsh or raucous noise.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • To utter heedlessly; blurt out: as, he blatted the news.
  • To talk inconsiderately or nonsensically; blather.
  • To bleat.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • intransitive verb Low To cry, as a calf or sheep; to bleat; to make a senseless noise; to talk inconsiderately.
  • transitive verb Low To utter inconsiderately.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • verb To cry, as a calf or sheep; to bleat; to make a senseless noise; to talk inconsiderately.
  • verb To produce an overrich or overblown sound on a brass instrument such as a trumpet, trombone, or tuba.
  • noun Connections; relationships; one's social or business network.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • verb cry plaintively

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Imitative.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Imitative, first attested 1846

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Russian блат, from Polish blat ("cover, umbrella") or Yiddish בלאַט ("leaf, list")

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Examples

  • The usual way to get a job in Russia is not by impressing at an interview, no, but by what is known as blat - "connections."

    NPR Topics: News 2011

  • Old Billy Bumps uttered a challenging "blat" almost upon the tail of

    The Corner House Girls at School Grace Brooks Hill 1917

  • I have done, I still loved it though! everytime I drove our shitty reject van with the command seat in the back flying around the place and the buttons all in the wrong place, and getting enough role out of it on a blat to make the oppo cringe!

    Oh How We Laughed……But Not Too Loudly. « POLICE INSPECTOR BLOG Inspector Gadget 2010

  • His father reached across the wheel and pressed the horn, a bleat and a long blat.

    Offramp David Ackley 2011

  • The left rarely uses more than 5 words to blat thier tired mindless montras.

    Liberal bloggers admit conservatives have upper hand on Twitter 2009

  • The giant automaton let out its low blat sound as it stepped over Eva and Muthr swinging its long segmented arms.

    The Search For WondLa Tony DiTerlizzi 2010

  • With her own eyes she had seen the magnificent marble tomb erected on Latimar land, blat the man who had commissioned and watched its building, had ordered that he would not be laid therein.

    Dearly Beloved 2010

  • Me - short blat later after rushing to attend a robbery report

    They Don’t Like It Up ‘Em! « POLICE INSPECTOR BLOG Inspector Gadget 2007

  • Neither would have been my first, if I could have gotten a shot, but I had never used a doe blat until then.

    Meditations on the Whitetail Deer 2007

  • I wonder about the musicians, if this is their full-time job, to blat and screech and crash, moving from one ceremony to the other with hardly a need to change the tunes.

    singapore observations: an ongoing series jlundberg 2009

Comments

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  • Used by Damon Runyan in 1932 to mean newspaper.

    "In fact, there is some mention of it in the blats."

    - D. Runyan, 'Collier's' 21 Aug. 32/2.

    September 24, 2011

  • Many Scandinavian and Dutch language newspaper names end(ed) in -blad. Along the lines of German Blatt, leaf. In this case, as in a leaf of paper, I should think.

    September 24, 2011

  • Good spot.

    Nice visuals too.

    September 24, 2011