Etymology: < bloat adj.²

Etymology: The spelling bloat occurs in this sense earlier than in that of bloat adj.², with which this is often identified, though it is safer to keep them distinct. The Middle English blote is perhaps identical with Old Norse blaut-r in the sense ‘soft with moisture, soaked, wet’; or from a parallel form *blót- : compare the Middle English verb blotne , Old Norse blotna to soften, moisten (see bloten v.), also Swedish blöt soft, moist, yielding. But it would also answer in form to Old English blát ‘livid, pale’, though this sense is less likely. Sense 2 recalls Old Norse blautr fiskr , i.e. ‘soft fish’, applied to ‘fresh’ fish, but in Swedish blöt fisk , to ‘soaked’ fish (Vigfusson). Though evidence of actual connection is wanting, it is conjectured that the English ‘bloat herring’ is, in some way, identical with these, and means, etymologically, either ‘soft (moist) herring’, in opposition to ‘dried’, or else ‘soaked, steeped herring’, in reference to part of the process of curing the herrings so termed. In Act 18 Chas. II. ii. ‘bloated’ is opposed to ‘dried’, and it is explained by Blount as ‘half-dried’; but most of the quotations give it as meaning (in actual use) ‘smoked’, (smoking being an important part of the process). One at least (1613 below) appears to identify it with ‘puffed up’, and thus with bloat adj.² 2, whereas Sylvester, in 1616, says ‘Herrings shrink in bloating’; but moist herrings are naturally plumper than those more thoroughly dried. See also bloat adj.², and bloat v.¹

Etymology: Apparently distinct at first (as an English word) from bloat adj.¹, since the earlier form of that was blote , but of this blout ; though of parallel origin, and, since the 17th cent., identified in form, and often associated in meaning. Middle English blout , blowt , was the regular adopted form of Old Norse blautr- soft (as a baby's limbs, a bed, silk; see Vigfusson); compare Swedish 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 c1640–50. Possibly bloat adj.¹ in ‘bloat herrings’ (found as early as 1602) was in the 17th cent. 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.¹, and its derivatives bloated adj.¹, bloating n.¹, 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 bloat adj.¹ since 1600, cannot be settled without more definite knowledge of the exact notion at first attached to ‘bloat herring’.

Etymology: Apparently < bloat adj.¹, with the sense ‘to make bloat’.

Etymology: apparently < bloat adj.²: its identity with or distinctness from the bloat v.¹ depends of course upon the relation of the two adjectives.