blat

• IPA^(key): /blæt/

• Audio (Southern England)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -æt

Imitative. First attested in 1846 in the intransitive sense of "bleat". Compare English bleat, Old English blǣtan (“to bleat”).

blat (third-person singular simple present blats, present participle blatting, simple past and past participle blatted)

1. (intransitive) To cry, as a calf or sheep; bleat.
2. (intransitive) To make a senseless noise.
   • 1991, Stephen King, Needful Things:

     A moment later the engine roared into life. Exhaust blatted through the straight-pipes; people stopped on the street to look.

3. To talk inconsiderately; blab.
4. To produce an overrich or overblown sound on a brass instrument such as a trumpet, trombone, or tuba.
5. (transitive) To utter loudly or foolishly; blurt.

Borrowed from Russian блат (blat), from Polish blat (“cover, umbrella”) or Yiddish בלאַט (blat, “leaf, list”). Doublet of blade.

blat (uncountable)

1. The Soviet system of connections and social relationships; one's social or business network (in Russian or Soviet society).

   Synonym: (from Chinese) guanxi

   To open a new business in Russia you need blat.

   • 1998, Alena V. Ledeneva, Russia's Economy of Favours. Blat, Networking and Informal Exchange, University of London, →ISBN, [Marketing description of that book hardly written by the author]:

     Alena Ledeneva's book is the first to analyse blat in all its historical, socio-economic and cultural aspects, and to explore its implications for post-Soviet society. In a socialist distribution system which resulted in constant shortages, blat developed into an 'economy of favours' which shadowed an overcontrolling centre and represented the reaction of ordinary people to the social constraints they faced.

   • 2003, William Gibson, Pattern Recognition (Bigend cycle; book 1), New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, →ISBN, page 180:

     “We call her that but really it’s more post-Soviet. She's the blat girl.”
     “The what?”
     “Blat. What the old boys in your country called juice, I think. She's connected, Marina is.

   • 2005, Adam Czarnota, Martin Krygier, Wojciech Sadurski, Rethinking the Rule of Law After Communism, page 334:

     The bribe caused the inflation of the social capital defined as blat. Monetarization of social relations led to the inflation of the social investments that the ordinary citizen has put in their blat networks. Only blat networks of the powerful survived […]

   • 2006, Alena V. Ledeneva, How Russia Really Works. The Informal Practices That Shaped Post-Soviet Politics and Business (Culture and Society after Socialism), Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, →ISBN, page 2:

     I argue that just as blat was an essential type of know-how of Soviet socialism, these postsocialist informal practices represent the “know-how” of post-Soviet Russia.

   • 2017, Joseph S. Berliner, "Blat", in David Twichell, The shallow stratigraphy and sand resources offshore of the Mississippi bar, age 326:

     The distinction between the use of blat for personal enrichment and for smoothing the work of the enterprise was emphasized in the interview testimony. […] The supply agent, for example, often has large quantities of money at his disposal for arranging his blat, much of which he might use for himself but which he devotes instead to making deals of advantage to the enterprise.

   • 2017, EASO Country of Origin Information Report. Russian Federation. State Actors of Protection‎, →DOI, →ISBN, page 32:

     Semukhina and Reynolds mention underlying reasons for the widespread corruption: pre-Soviet and Soviet practices (especially the system of blat⁽¹⁹¹⁾, which continued in the wake of the breakdown of the Soviet Union), institutional factors within the police (e.g. highly militarised structure, lack of accountability), a weak civil society, economic causes (maximising income and minimising risks) and a culture of ‘disrespect for the law’⁽¹⁹²⁾.

• Balt, Balt.

Inherited from Early Medieval Latin bladum.

• IPA^(key): (Central, Balearic, Valencian) [ˈblat]

• Audio (Valencian)

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• Audio (Catalonia)

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• Rhymes: -at

blat m (uncountable)

1. wheat

• “blat” in Diccionari de la llengua catalana, segona edició, Institut d’Estudis Catalans.

From Arabic بَلَاط (balāṭ, “tiles, paved surface”), eventually from Ancient Greek πλατεῖα (plateîa).

• IPA^(key): /blaːt/

blat m (collective, singulative blata, plural blajjet or blejjet, paucal blatiet)

1. rock (material, a mass or surface of it)

From Old Dutch *blat, from Proto-West Germanic *blad, from Proto-Germanic *bladą.

blat n

1. leaf
2. page (of a book)
3. panel (in a door)
4. tongue, blade
5. any flat surface or object

This noun needs an inflection-table template.

• Dutch: blad
  • Afrikaans: blad (“page”), blaar (“leaf”)
• Limburgish: blaad

• “blat”, in Vroegmiddelnederlands Woordenboek, 2000
• Verwijs, E., Verdam, J. (1885–1929) “blat (I)”, in Middelnederlandsch Woordenboek, The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, →ISBN, page I

Inherited from Early Medieval Latin bladum.

• IPA^(key): /ˈblat/

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blat m (plural blats)

1. wheat

From Proto-West Germanic *blait, from Proto-Germanic *blaitaz. Cognate with Old High German bleizza (“stain, blue, livor”).

• IPA^(key): /blɑːt/

blāt (comparative blātra, superlative blātast, adverb blāte)

1. pale, livid, ghastly

• blātian

• blātan

• Middle English: *blat, *blate, *blot, *blote
  • >? Scots: blate, blait

From Proto-West Germanic *blad, from Proto-Germanic *bladą, whence also Old Saxon blad, Old English blæd, Old Norse blað. Ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *bʰl̥h₃oto-, from *bʰleh₃-.

blat n (plural bletir)

1. leaf

• Middle High German: blat
  • Alemannic German: Blatt

    Swabian:

  • Central Franconian: Blatt, Blat

    Hunsrik: Blaat

    Luxembourgish: Blat

  • East Central German:

    Upper Saxon German:

    Vilamovian: błot

  • East Franconian:
  • German: Blatt
  • Rhine Franconian: Blaat, Blatt

    Pennsylvania German: Blatt

  • Yiddish: בלאַט (blat)

Borrowed from German Blatt, from Middle High German blat, plat, from Old High German blat, from Proto-West Germanic *blad, from Proto-Germanic *bladą.

• IPA^(key): /blat/

• Audio

  (file)

• Rhymes: -at
• Syllabification: blat

blat m inan (diminutive blacik)

1. counter, countertop, tabletop, top (top surface area of a piece of furniture)

• blat in Wielki słownik języka polskiego, Instytut Języka Polskiego PAN
• blat in Polish dictionaries at PWN

Borrowed from German Blatt, from Middle High German blat, plat, from Old High German blat, from Proto-West Germanic *blad (“leaf”), from Proto-Germanic *bladą (“leaf”); akin to Low German Blatt, Dutch blad, English blade, Danish and Swedish blad. Indo-European cognates include Ancient Greek φύλλον (phúllon), Latin folium.

blat n (plural blaturi)

1. (cooking) sheet, layer

Borrowed from Russian блат (blat, “cronyism”), from Polish blat (“the flat surface of a table”) or Yiddish בלאַט (blat), from German Blatt, from Middle High German blat, plat, from Old High German blat, from Proto-West Germanic *blad (“leaf”), from Proto-Germanic *bladą (“leaf”).

blat n (plural blaturi)

1. (slang) illegal activity, particularly travelling on a train without a ticket.
2. (soccer) match fixing

• blatist
• blătui