Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for November 21, 2025 is:
bloviate • \BLOH-vee-ayt\ • verb
To bloviate is to speak or write in an arrogant tone and with more words than are necessary.
// The podcaster tends to bloviate endlessly on topics about which he is not particularly knowledgeable.
Examples:
"While other characters bloviate about their lives, Barbara is a much more internal character, her quietness making her seem all the more an outsider in her hometown." — Kristy Puchko, Mashable.com, 13 June 2025
Did you know?
Warren G. Harding is often linked to the word bloviate, but to him the word wasn't insulting; it simply meant "to spend time idly." Harding used the word often in that "hanging around" sense, but during his tenure as the 29th U.S. President (1921-23), he became associated with the "verbose" sense of bloviate, as his speeches tended to be on the long-winded side. Although he is sometimes credited with having coined the word, it's more likely that Harding picked it up from local slang while hanging around with his boyhood buddies in Ohio in the late 1800s. The term likely comes from a combination of the word blow plus the suffix -ate.
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