blurb

English

Etymology

Coined by American humorist Gelett Burgess in 1907 on a dust jacket at a trade association dinner in 1907. The dust jacket said “YES, this is a “BLURB”!” and featured a (fictitious) “Miss Belinda Blurb” shown calling out, described as “in the act of blurbing”.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /blɝ(ː)b/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɜː(ɹ)b

Noun

blurb (plural blurbs)

1. A short description of a book, film, or other work, written and used for promotional purposes.
   • 1978 July 23, William Cole, “The Blurb and I”, in The New York Times‎^[2]:

     In a few weeks, blurbs would come back; a few, or many, depending on the book. There were certain writers we knew were always good for a blurb: Louis Untermeyer would always come through — poetry, fiction, humor — whatever, he'd send a well‐turned commendation.

Derived terms

• blurbification
• blurbist

 

Translations

a short description of a book, film, or other work

• Afrikaans: blakerteks, flapteks
• Catalan: sinopsi f
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 大作廣告／大作广告 (dàzuò guǎnggào)

• Dutch: flaptekst (nl)
• Finnish: takakansiteksti, mainosteksti
• French: quatrième de couverture (fr) f
• German: Klappentext (de) m, Einbandtext m, Umschlagtext m
• Hungarian: fülszöveg (hu) (books)
• Italian: fascetta pubblicitaria f
• Japanese: 宣伝文 (せんでんぶん, sendenbun)
• Norwegian: brødtekst m
• Persian: تقریظ (fa) (taqriz)
• Polish: blurb (pl) m
• Portuguese: sinopse (pt), resumo (pt), síntese (pt)
• Russian: (рекла́мная) аннота́ция (ru) f (annotácija), (изда́тельская) рекла́ма (ru) f (rekláma)
• Spanish: sinopsis (es), resumen (es), síntesis (es)
• Swedish: anmälan (sv) c, baksidestext
• Welsh: broliant m

Verb

blurb (third-person singular simple present blurbs, present participle blurbing, simple past and past participle blurbed)

1. (transitive) To write or quote in a blurb.
   • 2007 July 4, David M. Halbfinger, “Appearing Way Before the Film: The Review”, in New York Times‎^[3]:

     When Rene Rodriguez of The Miami Herald blogged about having seen and loved “The Departed” in Toronto in a supposedly private screening last fall, Warner Brothers “scolded me very strongly,” he said, “but they still blurbed a line from my blog in their opening ad.”

2. (transitive) To supply with a blurb.
   • 2012 April 17, Jon Michaud, “Blurb This!”, in The New Yorker‎^[4]:

     The unseemly business of book blurbing has been source of both humor and concern in the pages of The New Yorker.

   • 2015, Peter Simonson, David W. Park, The International History of Communication Study, page 268:

     Edward R. Murrow and other leading radio personalities blurbed the book, published in 1950 by Oxford University Press, and Siepmann thanked Paul Lazarsfeld and Herta Herzog in his acknowledgments.

See also

• capsule review

Further reading

• blurb on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

Polish

blurb

Etymology

Unadapted borrowing from English blurb.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈblurp/, /ˈblɛrp/

• Audio:

  (file)

• Rhymes: -urp, -ɛrp
• Syllabification: blurb

Noun

blurb m inan

1. (colloquial) blurb (short description of a book, film)

Declension

Declension of blurb

	singular	plural
nominative	blurb	blurby
genitive	blurbu	blurbów
dative	blurbowi	blurbom
accusative	blurb	blurby
instrumental	blurbem	blurbami
locative	blurbie	blurbach
vocative	blurbie	blurby

Further reading

• blurb in Polish dictionaries at PWN