hot air

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hot air (uncountable)

1. (literal) Air that has been heated, especially so as to function as the lifting agent of a hot-air balloon.

   The balloon was equipped with a burner to create hot air for lift.

2. (idiomatic) Empty, confused, or exaggerated talk lacking meaning or substance; bluster.
   • 1913, William MacLeod Raine, chapter 8, in The Vision Splendid:

     "You'll never get anywhere so long as youse trail with that reform bunch. It's all hot air and tomfool theory."

   • 1921, Alice Hegan Rice, chapter 28, in Quin:

     "You give me a lot of hot air about your conscience. Why don't you get a soap-box and preach on the street-corners?"

   • 2001 June 24, Johanna McGeary, “How Bad Is China?”, in Time, retrieved 22 Sept 2013:

     Some of the steam in Washington rises from real issues, but a lot is the hot air of partisan politics.

   • 2014 November 6, Rob Nixon, “Naomi Klein’s ‘This Changes Everything’”, in New York Times‎:

     Klein diagnoses impressively what hasn’t worked. No more claptrap about fracked gas as a bridge to renewables. Enough already of the international summit meetings that produce sirocco-quality hot air, and nonbinding agreements that bind us all to more emissions.

   • 2023 March 8, Christian Wolmar, “Labour passes up the chance to deliver a forceful rail policy”, in RAIL, number 978, page 34:

     I'm afraid I must disagree with Sir Michael Holden, for whom I have enormous respect, when he wrote in RAIL 977 that Transport Secretary Mark Harper's keynote speech for the George Bradshaw lecture in February was "a breath of fresh air". More like hot air to me, given Harper's emphasis on the private sector through both a kind of renewed franchising model and open access.

• hot-air balloon

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