big talk
big talk noun: statements which are boastful or exaggerated.
Noun
big talk (uncountable)
- Statements which are boastful or exaggerated.
- "Me, I just dropped in to hear yore big talk. Reminds me of old Geronimo. Like you, he gets all filled up with words about every so often and has to steam off. Go ahead, Gurley. Don't let me interrupt you. Make heap oration."1919, William MacLeod Raine, chapter 14, in Oh, You Tex!
- Classmates remembered him as brash and jug-eared and full of big talk about his sexual experience.2007 November 11, Charles McGrath, “Norman Mailer, Towering Writer With a Matching Ego, Dies at 84”, in The New York Times, archived from the original on 11 Feb 2021, retrieved 09 Sep 2012
- Synonyms:
- big words, braggadocio
- Major topic of conversation; current gossip.
- At the annual livestock convention in Toronto's Royal York Hotel last week, the big talk was about Holsteins.1949 February 14, “Canada: Los Holsteinos”, in TIME, archived from the original on 19 Sep 2012
- "The big talk of the street at the moment is that the Fed will raise the discount rate 50 basis points," said Kenneth Ducey.1994 August 12, “3-Day Stock Rally Ends As Dow Retreats 15.86”, in The New York Times, archived from the original on 04 Feb 2018, retrieved 09 Sep 2012
- Synonyms:
- the buzz
Synonyms of big talk
- big words
- braggadocio
- the buzz
Origin of big talk
Compare Old English micelsprecende [lit. "much speaking"] ("boasting").
Questions about big talk
- What does big talk mean?
- Big talk means statements which are boastful or exaggerated.
- What part of speech is big talk?
- Big talk is a noun.
Words near big talk in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: big talk (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-au-big talk.ogg.
Cite this entry: “big talk.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/big_talk. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.
