windbag

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   a person who talks at excessive length, often pompously, while saying little of value

   The reform movement chose an eloquent windbag who made grand promises but proposed no workable policy.

A compound of wind and bag, attested in late Middle English for an air-filled bag or an organ bellows. The image of a bag full of nothing but air produced the figurative sense 'a person who talks too much,' recorded from the early nineteenth century.

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