Forms: 4 bloute, 6–7 blowt(e, 7– bloat. [Apparently distinct at first (as an Eng. word) from the prec., since the earlier form of that was blote, but of this blout; though of parallel origin, and, since the 17th c., identified in form, and often associated in meaning. ME. blout, blowt, was the regular adopted form of ON. blautr- soft (as a baby’s limbs, a bed, silk; see Vigf.); cf. Sw. blöt ‘soft, yielding, pulpous, pulpy.’ The later form bloat does not answer phonetically to blout, blowt, yet its modern use is largely owing to the ‘blowt king’ of Hamlet having been printed ‘bloat’ by editors since Warburton, 1747; G. Daniel had also spelt the word in this way c. 1640–50. Possibly BLOAT a.1 in ‘bloat herrings’ (found as early as 1602) was in the 17th c. a much better known word than this, and being, rightly or wrongly, identified with it, influenced its form. It is to be noted that BLOAT v., and its derivatives BLOATED, BLOATING, are all of earlier use as applied to the herring, than in senses connected with this word. Sense 2 is a natural enough extension of 1; but it may have been influenced by association with blow, blown; the mutual influence of this and the prec. since 1600, cannot be settled without more definite knowledge of the exact notion at first attached to ‘bloat herring.’]
† 1. Blowte, bloute: ? Soft, soft-bodied, flabby, pulpy; passing into ‘puffy, puffed, swollen.’ Obs.
c. 1300. Havelok, 1910. He leyden on … [blows] … He maden here backes al so bloute Als he[re] wombes, and made hem rowte Als he weren kradel-barnes.
1602. Shaks., Ham., III. iv. 182. Let the blowt king tempt you againe to bed. [So all the Quartos, exc. Q 1, where wanting; the Folios read blunt.]
1603. H. Crosse, Vertues Commw. (1878), 145. The body I say is subiect to so much pestilence … the face blowte, puft vp, and stuft with the lockes of strong beere.
2. Bloat: Puffed, swollen, inflated, esp. with self-indulgence. Hence bloat-faced adj. (In modern writers an echo of Shakespeare’s word since that has been written bloat. BLOATED occurs in the same sense from 1664.)
1638–48. G. Daniel, Eclog., iii. 83. The foolish rites Of bloat-fac’d Bacchus. Ibid. (1649), Trinarch., Hen. V., ccxcii. The Bloat Face of Rusticitie, Smuggs, looking in A Mirrour.
1747. [Warburton, printed bloat for blowt and blunt in Hamlet.]
1832. Blackw. Mag., XXXII. 661. The bloat and ugly villain.
1857. Heavysege, Saul (1869), 332. To fetch a calf or sheep, That its bloat master may it stick and slay?
1861. Temple & Trevor, Tannhäuser, 11. From foul embrace Of that bloat Queen.
b. transf.
[1635. Quarles, Embl., I. Invoc. Scorn, scorn to feed on thy old bloat desires. (? cf. bloat herring.)]
1646. G. Daniel, Poems, Wks. 1878, I. 89. What I loose or win To bloat opinion, that below my fate I ever value.
