blare
Language: English
Part of speech: noun
Pronunciation: ipa: /blɛə/
ipa: /blɛ(ə)ɹ/
ipa: /bleː/
note: without the cheer–chair merger
ipa: /bleə/
note: New Zealand, cheer–chair merger
ipa: /bliə/
ipa: /bleɹ/
note: Lancashire, fair–fur merger
ipa: /blɜː(ɹ)/
rhymes: -ɛə(ɹ)
homophone: blair
homophone: Blair
homophone: blear (cheer–chair merger)
homophone: blur (fair–fur merger)
Forms: form: blares
Etymology: The verb is derived from Late Middle English blaren, bleren, bloren (“to bellow, cry, wail; of a goat: to bleat”), probably from Old English *blǣren, from Middle Dutch blaren, bleren (“to bawl, cry; to shout; to bleat”) (modern Dutch blèren), possibly from Proto-Indo-European *bʰleh₁- (“to bleat, cry”) and ultimately imitative.
The noun is derived from the verb.
Cognates
Low German blaeren, blaren, blarren
Middle High German blêren, blerren (modern German plärren)
Senses: examples: text: I can hardly hear you over the blare of the radio.
text: [T]heir host of eagles flew / Past the Pyrenean pines, / Follow'd up in valley and glen / With blare of bugle, clamour of men, / Roll of cannon and clash of arms, / And England pouring on her foes.
ref: 1852, Alfred Tennyson, “Stanza VI”, in Ode on the Death of the Duke of Wellington, London: Edward Moxon, […], →OCLC, page 10:
text: They danced on silently, softly. Their feet played tricks to the beat of the tireless measure, that exquisitely asinine blare which is England's punishment for having lost America.
ref: 1922 October, Michael Arlen, “Book the Second: The Friends. Chapter II.”, in “Piracy”: A Romantic Chronicle of These Days, London; Glasgow: W[illiam] Collins Sons & Co., […], published August 1924, →OCLC, section 1, page 84:
text: The blare of the music and the restlessness of the chorus afflicted his nerves.
ref: 1924 May 24 – July 12, P[elham] G[renville] Wodehouse, “Judson Finds an Old Friend”, in Bill the Conqueror: His Invasion of England in the Springtime, 10th edition, London: Methuen & Co. […], published 1931, →OCLC, page 242:
text: The screeching of brakes, the monotonous blare of motor horns, the clip-clip of shoes on slippery pavements, the rustling of wet mackintoshes were all part of the great metropolis.
ref: 1936, F[rederick] J[oseph] Thwaites, chapter XXII, in The Redemption, Sydney, N.S.W.: H. John Edwards Publishing, published 1940, →OCLC, page 214:
glosses: A loud sound.
examples: text: Archivist Camus, an Old-Constituent appointed Archivist, he and the Ancient Twelve, amid blare of military pomp and clangour, enter, bearing the divine Book: and President and all Legislative Senators, laying their hand on the same, successively take the Oath, with cheers and heart-effusion, universal three-times-three.
ref: 1837, Thomas Carlyle, “The Book of the Law”, in The French Revolution: A History […], volume II (The Constitution), London: Chapman and Hall, →OCLC, book V (Parliament First), page 209:
text: And we came to the Isle of Fire: we were lured by the light from afar, / For the peak sent up one league of fire to the Northern Star; / Lured by the glare and the blare, but scarcely could stand upright, / For the whole isle shudder'd and shook like a man in a mortal affright; […]
ref: 1880, Alfred Tennyson, “[Ballads and Other Poems.] The Voyage of Maeldune. (Founded on an Irish Legend. A.D. 700.)”, in Ballads and Other Poems, London: C[harles] Kegan Paul & Co., […], →OCLC, stanza VII, pages 148–149:
glosses: Of colour, light, or some other quality: dazzling, often garish, brilliance.
examples: text: The herds [of bison], in their flight from the burning pastures had rushed over the bed of the watercourse—scaled the slopes of the banks. […] One cry alone more wild than their own savage blare pierced the reek through which the Brute Hurricane swept.
ref: 1861 September 28 – 1862 March 8, [Edward Bulwer-Lytton], chapter XLVII, in A Strange Story. […], volume II, London: Sampson Low, Son, & Co., […], published 1862, →OCLC, pages 369–370:
qualifier: obsolete except British
glosses: A lengthy sound, as of a person crying or an animal bellowing or roaring.