v. Sc. and north. dial. Also blother, bludder. [An onomatopæic word, of similar formation to BLUBBER, with which it is often synonymous, though perhaps expressing more specifically the sound of air and liquid in the mouth, nose and throat: cf. also BLETHER, and esp. its form blother in Skelton. Wedgwood compares, as of similar formation, LG. plodern to sound like water gushing, Bavarian pludern to guggle like water gushing out of a narrow opening (cf. MHG. blôdern to rush, rustle); also mod.Ger. plaudern, Bav. blodern, plodern, LG. plûdern to gabble, jabber, chatter. See also bloother as a variant of BLUBBER (of the whale).]
1. intr. ‘To raise wind-bells in water,’ Jamieson. (rather the bubbling sound made in doing so.)
2. intr. To cry with a voice smothered with tears and sobs; to blubber. To bluther out (trans.): to weep out.
1697. W. Cleland, Poems, 35 (Jam.).
| Heraclitus, if he had seen, | |
| He would have bluther’d out his Een. |
3. trans. To make wet, mucous, and foul with weeping, etc.
1637. Rutherford, Lett., cv. (1862), I. 267. Christ … hath wiped a bluthered face which was foul with weeping.
1768. Ross, Helenore, 28 (Jam.). His een … bluddert now with strypes of tears and sweat.
1790. A. Shirrefs, Poems, 42 (Jam.). And drunken chapins bluther a’ his face.
4. To blur and disfigure (writing, etc.) with wetting (Jamieson); also fig.
1727. P. Walker, Remark. Passages (1827), 208 (Jam.). That … his faithful Contendings for … Reformation … should be so blotted and bluthered with these Right-hand Extreams, and Left-hand Defections.
Hence Bluthered ppl. a. (see above), Blutherment dial. (in Whitby Gloss.).
