Green’s Dictionary of Slang

(US) to talk loudly or aggressively, thus bloviator, a loud and aggressive speaker.

1854		Ohio Star (Ravenna, OH) 15 Mar. 2/2: The Sentinel is preparing its assinine [sic] lungs to bloviate on the subject.
1867		Hancock Jefferson (Findlay, OH) 5 Apr. 2/1: We presume the Statesman wil not ‘bloviate’ quite so extremely upon the negro qustion.
1874		Helena Wkly Herald (MT) 16 July 4/5: The mayor [is] always ready to bloviate whenever he can get an audience.
1883		Benton Wkly Record (MT) 26 May 7/7: Both the Helena Herald and Dillon Tribune [...] bloviate considerably about how ‘the Democrats were scooped,’ and the ‘Micks downed the Missourians’.
1886		McCook Trib. (NE) 26 Aug. 3/1: I do not believe in all this bloviating about Mexico.
1889–90		Barrère & Leland Dict. of Sl., Jargon and Cant.
1890–1904		Farmer & Henley Sl. and Its Analogues I 245/2: bloviate, verb (American). – To talk aimlessly and boastingly [...] Said to have been in use since 1850.
1894		Courier (Lincoln, NE) 11 Aug. 10/1: We can hear the shrivelling of things [...] as Bloviating Billy fulfills his dread mission and scatters blood red ink.
1908		Valentice Democratic (NE) 1 Oct. 1/2: After bloviating for ten or twelve years about Mr Bryan’s ‘undignified methods of campaigning’ [...].
1913		Edgefield Advertiser (SC) 29 Jan. 6/3: Men who always [...] bloviating over what they have don’t get very far.
1920		Eve. Star (Wash., DC) 23 Nov. 24/3: An Elk is a person who, when he does a good deed [...] does not ‘bloviate’ about it.
2005		J. Stahl I, Fatty 130: Listening to him bloviate about ‘stagecraft’ and ‘the lure of the boards.’.
2017		Literary Hub 8 Sept. 🌐 Alice, who has long since decided she has had enough of him and his bloviating.
2017		T. Spicer Good Girl Stripped Bare 243: I’m a regular host on commercial talkback radio. [...] The floor of the opinion factory! Oh, the bloviating windbaggery!
2021		J. Ellroy Widespread Panic 191: I saw Funky Führer Nick Ray blaspheme, bloviate and bluster.
2023		(con. 1962) J. Ellroy Enchanters 175: I thought bloviator Greenson would bloviate on Monroe.