blithering idiot

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blithering idiot

A senseless babbler. This term owes its origin to the Scots dialect verb to blether, meaning to talk nonsense, with blither being a variant spelling. Combining it with “idiot” began in the late 1800s. It appeared in the British humor magazine Punch in 1889: “I’ll state pretty clearly that his son is a blithering idiot.”
See also: idiot
References in classic literature ?
The rooks cawed, and blither birds sang; but nothing was so merry or so musical as my own rejoicing heart.
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* Nontechie readers will be happy to know that the book is light on techno-babble (or blither or blather).
Write Right: Improving Written Communication Skills--Part One
Country singer Chely Wright, who came out just last year, and Lauren Blilzer an LGBT activist, exchanged vows in front of 200 guests at Blither aunt's estate in Connecticut, where same-sex weddings are legal.
Budding romance and broken hearts: Laurel and Sara are back on the market, Cher goes mama bear and Chely gets married
Yet her painstaking process reveals human nuances that blither artists often miss.
Alison Lambert: Latent Presences
"We have kept it under wraps because you can't blither about something until you understand it.
Attenborough claims discovery of missing link in human evolution
It was incredible to see anti-death penalty commentators apologizing constantly, always having to blither "of course no one condones his actions"--as though arguing for life imprisonment made one the squishiest, most bleeding-heart of moral equivocators.
No Vengeance, No Justice
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