bladder

▪ I. bladder, n.
    (ˈblædə(r))
    Forms: 1 blédræ, (blédre), blǽdre, -ddre, 3–4 bleddre, 4–5 bleddere, bladdre, 5 bled-, bladdyr, bladdur(e, ? blowre, 5–6 bledder, 6 blader, bladdare, 6–7 blather, (Sc. 6 bleddir, 8– blather, blether), 5– bladder.
    [Com. Teut.: OE., WSax. blǽdre, blæddre, Anglian blédre, wk. fem. = OSax. *blâdra, (MLG. blâder, bladder, MDu. blâder(e, Du. blaar, Flem. bladder), OHG. blâtara (MHG. blâtere, blâttere, mod.G. blatter), ON. bláðra (Sw. bläddra, Da. blære):—OTeut. *blæ̂-drôn-, f. verb. stem blæ̂- to blow + -drôn suffix denoting instrument, cogn. w. Gr. -τρα, -τρον. The dialectal variation in OE. blédre, blǽdre, remained in the ME. bledder, bladder (both having the vowel shortened by position); blather, blether (still used in Scotland) may represent the ON. form, but is more probably an instance of the fluctuation of d and ð in conjunction with r, seen in comparing father, mother, feather, hither, with ME. fader, moder, feder, hider.]
    1. A membranous bag in the animal body. a. orig. The musculo-membranous bag which serves as the receptacle of the urinary fluid secreted by the kidneys. Called also urinary bladder.

a 700 Epinal Gloss. (O.E. Texts) 1077 Vessica, bledrae. Corpus Gl. 2101 Vesica, bledre. c 1000 Sax. Leechd. I. 360 Wið blæddran sare ᵹenim eoferes blædran mid þam micᵹan. 1398 Trevisa Barth. De P.R. v. xliv. (1495) 161 Euery beest that gendryth hath a bladder. Ibid. vii. lv. 268 Yf they come of the bledder. c 1420 Pallad. on Husb. i. 54 Yf langoure in thaire bledders ought awake. 1519 W. Horman Vulg. iii. 32 The payne of the stone that cometh of dropynge of the bladder. 1530 Palsgr. 904 The bledder, la uessie. 1570 Levins Manip. 28 Bladdare, Blader, vesica. 1607 Topsell Four-f. Beasts 546 The bladder of a wilde Boar..The blather of a Goat. 1718 Pope Iliad v. 88 Between the bladder and the bone it pass'd. 1782 Burns Death Poor Mailie 64 For thy pains, thou'se get my blather. 1785 ― Sc. Drink xvii, May gravels round his blather wrench! 1842 E. Wilson Anat. Vade M. 541 The Bladder is an oblong membranous viscus of an ovoid shape.

    b. Any membranous bag in the animal body; usually with distinctive adjunct, as gall-bladder, air-bladder, swimming-bladder.

1661 Lovell Hist. Anim. & Min. 232 A bladder in them full of spawn. 1668 Culpepper & Cole Barthol. Anat. ii. vi. 106 The first bladder of the Heart. 1797 Baillie Morb. Anat. (1807) 250 The gall-bladder is sometimes distended with bile. 1847 Carpenter Zool. §527 In the organisation of Fishes..the swimming bladder is situated in the abdomen. 1869 Nicholson Zool. xxv. (1880) 250 Rotifera..In the hinder part of the body..is a sac or vesicle, which is termed the ‘contractile bladder.’

    † 2. a. A morbid vesicle containing liquid or putrid matter; a boil, blister, pustule. Obs.

c 1000 ælfric Ex. ix. 9 On mannum and on nytenum beoð wunda and swellende blæddran. c 1000 Sax. Leechd. I. 86 Uncuþum blædrum ðe on mannes nebbe sittað. 1388 Wyclif Ex. ix. 10 Woundis of bolnynge bladdris weren maad in men & in werk beestis. 1523 Fitzherb. Husb. §62 A bladder full of water two inches longe and more. 1577 B. Googe Heresbach's Husb. (1586) 167 All swelling as it were with little blathers. 1606 Shakes. Tr. & Cr. v. i. 24 Dirt rotten livers..bladders full of imposthume. 1607 Topsell Four-f. Beasts 419 The pimples or bladders which arise in the bites of a Shrew. 1880 Syd. Soc. Lex. s.v., Bladder in the throat, old American term for cynanche.

    b. (see quot.)

a 1722 Lisle Observ. Husb. (1757) 343 (E.D.S.) A distemper that falls on a bullock in the spring..which they in their country call the bladder; the bullock will be taken with a swelling of his lips, and running of his mouth, and swelling of his eyes, and running of them.

    3. The prepared bladder of an animal, which may be inflated and used from its buoyancy as a float; also as the wind-bag of a simple kind of bag-pipe, as a receptacle for lard, etc.

a 1225 Ancr. R. 282 A bleddre ibollen ful of winde ne duueð nout. c 1425 Seven Sag. (P.) 2181 Grete blowen bladdyrs he brake And thay gave a gret crake. a 1520 Myrr. Our Ladye 17 Though hys harte were stretched out..as a blather full of wynde. 1595 Spenser Col. Clout 717 Bladders blowen up with wynd, That being prickt do vanish into noughts. 1613 Shakes. Hen. VIII, iii. ii. 359 Little wanton Boyes that swim on bladders. 1717 Lady M. W. Montagu Lett. xxxvii. I. 145 As if a foreigner should take his ideas of English music from the bladder and string. 1782 Wolcott (P. Pindar) 3rd Ode to R.A.'s, Learn to squeeze the colours from the bladders. 1783 Cowper Task i. 585 With dance, And music of the bladder and the bag. 1862 Mrs. Beeton Cookery Bk. §194 Put it [lard] into small jars or bladders for use.

    4. The substance of a sheep's or ox's bladder used for air-tight coverings.

1769 Mrs. Raffald Eng. Housekpr. (1778) 347 Tie them down with a bladder and paper over it. 1796 H. Glasse Cookery xviii. 294 Cover them close with a bladder and leather. 1827 Faraday Chem. Manip. xviii. 477 Moistened bladder is in constant requisition.

    5. A filmy cavity full of air, a vesicle, a bubble.

1702 Lond. Gaz. No. 3776/4 Looking-Glass Plates..free from Bladders, Veins, and Fowlness. 1761 Churchill Rosciad 870 Behold the pipe-drawn bladders circling swim. 1856 Enquire Within (1862) 82 If little bladders appear, it has attained that degree.

    6. a. fig. Anything inflated and hollow, like a blown-up bladder.

1589 Pappe w. Hatchet (1844) 27 A bladder of worldlie winde which swells in their hearts. 1627 Sanderson Serm. I. 283 Prick the bladder of our pride. 1649 G. Daniel Trinarch., Rich. II, clxxvii, Hee..With former Titles swolne, vnwillingly Would loose that Bladder. 1734 Pope Donne Sat. iv. 205 Such as swell this bladder of a court.

    b. An inflated pretentious man; ‘a wind-bag.’

1579 Tomson Calvin's Serm. Tim. 279/2 Them that are harebraines and bladders full of winde. 1616 R. C. Times' Whis. iii. 1115 Thou bladder full puft vp with vanity. 1840 Dickens Barn. Rudge lxii, My friend the noble captain—the illustrious general—the bladder.

    c. bladder of lard: a bald-headed or fat person. slang.

1864 in Hotten Slang Dict. 1886 Athenæum 31 July 142/1 An elderly Jew money-lender, whom she afterwards describes to her admiring friends as a ‘bladder of lard’, a graceful reference to his baldness and tendency to stoutness. 1943 W. de la Mare Magic Jacket 24 Here's that bladder-of-lard, schoolmaster Smiles, saying exactly the same thing.

    d. slang (chiefly U.S.). A newspaper, esp. a poor one. Cf. blat n.²

1936 Mencken Amer. Lang. (ed. 4) 159 Other etymologists..have discerned German influences..in the common use of Bladder as a derisory title for a small and bad newspaper [cf. G. blätter newspapers]. 1937 D. Runyon in Collier's 16 Jan. 8/2 In a bundle of old magazines and newspapers.., he comes upon a bladder that is called the Matrimonial Tribune. 1973 Observer 7 Jan. 9/1 The news of your return has caused hardly a ripple in the daily bladders.

    7. Bot. a. The inflated pericarp of some plants.

1578 Lyte Dodoens iii. xc. 444 The flowers bring foorth rounde balles, or blasted bladders. 1867 Baker Nile Tribut. ii. 30 This vegetable silk is contained in a soft pod or bladder about the size of an orange.

    b. A hollow vesicle occurring as an appendage of several plants, as the genus Utricularia, and various sea-weeds. Cf. air-bladder.

1789 Lightfoot Flora Scot. II. 904 Bladder Fucus..In the disc or surface are immersed hollow sphærical or oval air-bladders. 1854 Balfour Bot. §973. 473 Bladderworts..so called on account of the utricles or bladders connected with the leaves. 1875 Darwin Insect. Pl. xvii, The real use of the bladders is to capture small aquatic animals.

    † 8. ? A plant. Obs.

a 1500 in Wr.-Wülcker Voc. 568 Berula, Bleddere. [Berula = ‘a herb, called also cardamine.’]

    9. attrib. and Comb., as bladder chops; bladder-less, bladder-like, bladder-puffed, adjs.

1549 Latimer Serm. bef. Edw. VI, (Arb.) 66 These bledder puffed vp wylye men. 1610 Healey St. Aug. Citie of God 607 All the bladder-like humors of vaine glory. 1611 Wom. is Weather Cock iv. ii, in Hazl. Dodsl. II. 67 Thy bladder-chops and thy robustious words. 1698 J. Petiver in Phil. Trans. XX. 324 A turgid bladder-like Pod. 1847 Todd Cycl. Anat. & Phys. III. 253/2 The bladder scirrhus of Dr. Benedict is nothing more than this form of hydatid disease. 1881 Jrnl. Botany X. 28 Bladderless and thick-leaved.

    10. Special comb., as bladder-angling, fishing with a hook fixed to an inflated bladder; bladder-brand, a local name of the Bunt; bladder-campion, the common book-name of Silene inflata, from the inflated calyx; bladder-fern, a fern of the genus Cystopteris, from their bladder-like indusia; bladder-fish, apparently a variety of the globe-fish, Tetraodon ocellatus; bladder-glass, a glass vessel covered at one end with a piece of bladder, for showing the atmospheric pressure, by the bursting in of the bladder when the air is exhausted from the vessel; bladder-green, a green pigment obtained from the Common Buckthorn (Rhamnus catharticus), sap-green; bladder-herb, a name of the Winter Cherry, from its inflated calyx; bladder-hole (see quot.); bladder-kelp (= bladder-wrack); bladder lard, lard put up for sale in bladders, used spec. as the trade name for lard of the best quality; bladder-nose, a species of seal; bladder-nut, the fruit of a kind of shrub, Staphylea pinnata, contained in bladder-like pods; also the shrub itself; bladder-plum (see quot.); bladder-pot, English name of the Physolobium, a species of Leguminosæ of South-west Australia; the American Bladder-pod is Vesicaria Shortii; bladder-seed, English name of the Physospermum, from the loose outer coating of the undeveloped fruit; bladder-senna, the Colutea arborescens, so called from its distended pods, and the fact that its leaves are sometimes mixed with senna leaves; Sutherlandia frutescens, a showy shrub of the Cape of Good Hope is found in English gardens under the name of the Cape Bladder-senna (Treas. Bot.); bladder-snout (= bladder-wort); bladder-tangle (= bladder-wrack); bladder-tree, the North American species of the Bladder-nut tree (Staphylea trifoliata); bladder-weed (= bladder-wrack); bladder worm, the larva of a tapeworm in its encysted state; a hydatid; bladder-wort, a genus of water-plants, Utricularia [of which the word is a mod. transl.], distinguished by the small bags on roots, stems, and leaves, filled with air, which keep them afloat during the period of flowering; bladder-wrack, a species of sea-weed (Fucus vesiculosus), with air bladders in the substance of the fronds.

1883 Gd. Words Nov. 736/1 Bunt..is known by various names..as smut-balls, *bladder-brand, stinking-rust, &c.

1828 J. E. Smith Eng. Flora IV. 297 Cystea. *Bladder-fern. Ibid. 298 C. fragilis. Brittle Bladder-fern. 1961 R. W. Butcher Brit. Flora I. 154 The Common Bladder Fern grows in walls and rocky woods on the basic soils commonly in highland Britain and rarely in the eastern and southern portions.

1770 in Phil. Trans. LX. 526 The..property of rendring the poison of the *bladder-fish..more virulent.

1854 J. Scoffern in Orr's Circ. Sc. Chem. 296 If a bladder-glass..be laid flat on the plate of an air-pump..the full force of atmospheric pressure will take place externally on the tense membrane.

1830 Lindley Nat. Syst. Bot. 114 The green colour known under the name of *Bladder-green.

1789 Mills in Phil. Trans. LXXX. 97 Higher up the hill is an hard chert, with a kind of *bladder-holes.

1835 Kirby Hab. & Inst. Anim. I. ix. 294 [Periwinkles] appear to make the *bladder-kelp..a kind of submarine pasture.

1872 Eng. Mech. 11 Oct. 82/3 The fourth [sample] (a *bladder lard) contained 10 per cent. of water.

1578 Lyte Dodoens vi. lx. 735 Of the *Bladder Nut. 1741 Compl. Fam. Piece ii. iii. 374 Several other Trees and Shrubs..are now in Flower, as..Bladder Nut.

1869 Masters Veg. Terat. 465 The stone of plums is occasionally deficient, as in what are termed *bladder-plums; some of these, consisting merely of a thin bladder, are curiously like the pods of Colutea.

1794 Martyn Rousseau's Bot. xxv. 360 Common *Bladder-Sena has an arboreous stem..It grows twelve or fourteen feet high.

1857 Kingsley Two Y. Ago I. 259 Every sea-snail crept to hide itself under the *bladder-tangle.

1858 *Bladder worm [see cysticercal a.]. 1949 New Biol. VII. 116 If pigs swallowed the eggs of Taenia solium, bladder-worms (Cysticercus cellulosae) developed in their flesh.

1815 Encycl. Brit. (ed. 5) IV. 90/1 Common *bladder-wort, or hooded milfoil, grows in stagnant waters. 1839 G. Francis Eng. Flora 1 The curious Bladderwort, the roots of which are furnished with little air bags.

1789 Lightfoot Flora Scot. II. 904 *Bladder Fucus or Common Sea Wrack. 1810 Edin. Rev. XVII. 146 The prickly tang..often grows intermixed with the bladder-wrack.

▪ II. bladder, v.
    Also 6 blader, 7 blather.
    [f. prec.]
    † 1. intr. To swell out like, or into, a bladder.

c 1440 in Halliw. Nugæ P. 66 Avaryssia ys a souking sore, He bladdyrth and byldeth alle in my boure. 1543 Traheron Vigo's Chirurg. ii. x. 23 Everye..pustle that bladereth.

    † 2. trans. To inflate; to puff up, swell out.

1610 G. Fletcher Christ's Vict. ii. lviii, A hollow globe of glasse..She full of emptiness had bladdered. Ibid. i. lxxii, Bladder'd vp with pride of his own merit. a 1625 Beaum. & Fl. i. li. (Halliw.) Fame Gathers but wind to blather up a name. 1649 G. Daniel Trinarch., Hen. IV, xxiv, To amuse the world, and bladder out Light Braines. Ibid. Rich. II, xv, Bladder'd with Ambition.

    3. To put into a bladder, as ‘bladdered lard.’
    Hence ˈbladdered ppl. a., ˈbladdering vbl. n. and ppl. a.

1633 P. Fletcher Elisa i. xxvi, Lest these goods might swell my bladder'd minde. 1672 Dryden Conq. Granada v. i. 168 'Till they have burst the bladder'd Cloud. 1697 ― Vergil Ded., They affect greatness in all they write: but it is a bladdered greatness. 1885 Pall Mall G. 3 Sept. 4 A line of glittering bladdered olive-green seaweed. 1612 Woodall Surg. Mate (1653) 32 Bladderings of the skin.

Oxford English Dictionary