Definition of "blather"

“There you go blatherin’,” said Brindle, intending a mild rebuke.

1866, George Eliot [pseudonym; Mary Ann Evans], chapter XI, in Felix Holt, the Radical […], volume I, Edinburgh, London: William Blackwood and Sons, page 249

It was at the unveiling of Sir John Gray's statue. Edmund Dwyer Gray was speaking, blathering away, and here was this old fellow, crabbed-looking old chap, looking at him from under his bushy eyebrows.

1914 June, James Joyce, “Grace”, in Dubliners, London: Grant Richards, page 210

On and on he blathered, taking refuge in the one thing he felt lent him superiority: words.

2001, Richard Flanagan, “The Pot-Bellied Seahorse”, in Gould’s Book of Fish‎, New York, N.Y.: Grove Atlantic, published 2014, section 5

Then, just before the wedding, the old man feels he’s honor bound to tell his future son-in-law the secret of his past; so the damned idiot blathers the whole story of his killing the man and breaking jail!

1929, Eugene O’Neill, Dynamo‎, New York, N.Y.: Liveright, act I, scene i, page 31

[…] the church attitude has never been that a teacher should be allowed to blather anything that comes into his head without any accountability at all.

1974, Robert M[aynard] Pirsig, chapter 18, in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry into Values, New York, N.Y.: William Morrow & Company, part 3, page 214

That is the worst of being in an Irish regiment, nothing can be done widout ever so much blather;

1897, G. A. Henty, chapter 1, in With Moore at Corunna‎, New York: Scribner, page 16

Will you cease your blather of mutiny and treason and courts-martial?

1922, Rafael Sabatini, chapter 23, in Captain Blood‎, New York: Grosset & Dunlap, page 265

With years of proofreading under my belt, I knew exactly the blather and bluster favoured by professional politicians.

1995, Rohinton Mistry, A Fine Balance‎, Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, Part 5, p. 280

[…] on Vlisses Circe did bestowe / A blather, where the windes imboweld were,

1596, Charles Fitzgeoffrey, Sir Francis Drake His Honorable Lifes Commendation, and His Tragicall Deathes Lamentation, Oxford: Joseph Barnes