Meaning of blague | Babel Free

Definitions

Mendacious boasting that lacks seriousness; falsehood or humbug, especially when it is told mockingly or without the expectation that anyone believes it.

countable, uncountable

Equivalents

Examples

“The difference is this: one may be obliged to maintain a falsehood from feelings of pride or self-respect, but a blague can be given up without a scruple.”

“I wonder if the cholera-sick fishing harbour is so sweet, after all! Blague probably. Blague, blague! Brides, love, Naples, joie de vivre, ancient, modern, liberal, conservative, ideal, real, natural—blague. Blague all the way.”

“The blague differs from the laughter of, say, Hugo's L'Homme qui rit, just as it is distinct from irony, which is never coarse or untrue, and indeed presupposes a whole shared system of values.”

“But whereas blague, as Pound seems to envisage it, begins with pomp and ends in derision, this poem emerges from circumstances of derision”

CEFR level