Word.ws English Dictionary

bland

[bleənd] ~ [blɛənd]UK/blænd/

bland adjective: having a soothing effect; not irritating or stimulating.

Adjective

bland (comparative blander, superlative blandest)

  1. Having a soothing effect; not irritating or stimulating.
    • a bland oil
    • a bland diet
    Synonyms:
    anodyne
  2. Lacking in taste or flavor.
    • The coffee was bland.
  3. Lacking in vigor.
    • First and foremost, alternative country artists generally claim to reject mainstream country music as musically indistinguishable from bland pop music, as lyrically superficial, and as having no artistic merit […]2012, John Shepherd, David Horn, Continuum Encyclopedia of Popular Music of the World
    Synonyms:
    tame, anodyne
  4. (figuratively) Lacking interest; boring; dull.
    • bland comment
    • He's reading Balzac and knocking back Prozac / It's a helping hand that makes you feel wonderfully bland1996, “Country House”, in The Great Escape, performed by Blur
  5. (archaic) Mild; soft, gentle, balmy; smooth in manner; suave.
    • Where didst thou find, young Bard, thy sounding lyre? / Where the bland accent, and the tender tone?1818, John Keats, Sonnet
    • “A tight little craft,” was Austin’s invariable comment on the matron;[…]. ¶ Near her wandered her husband, orientally bland, invariably affable, and from time to time squinting sideways, as usual, in the ever-renewed expectation that he might catch a glimpse of his stiff, retroussé moustache.1907 August, Robert W[illiam] Chambers, chapter IX, in The Younger Set, New York, N.Y.: D. Appleton & Company, →OCLC

Verb

bland (third-person singular simple present blands, present participle blanding, simple past and past participle blanded)

  1. (UK, dialectal, transitive) To mix; blend; mingle.
  2. (UK, dialectal, transitive) To connect; associate.

Noun

bland (countable and uncountable, plural blands)

  1. (UK, dialectal) Mixture; union.
  2. A summer beverage prepared from the whey of churned milk, common among the inhabitants of the Shetland Islands.

Proper noun capitalized: Bland

Bland

  1. A surname.
  2. A small city in Gasconade County and Osage County, Missouri, United States.
  3. A census-designated place, the county seat of Bland County, Virginia, United States.
  4. A local government area (Bland Shire) in the Riverina region, New South Wales, Australia.
  5. A locality in the Bland council area, central New South Wales, Australia.

bland meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Marathi and Urdu

bland in Hindi

bland, boring
फीका phīkā

bland in Tamil

எரிச்சலற்ற, எளிதான, சுவையற்ற, நீர்மோர், மெதுவான, பசுமையான

bland in Marathi

bland, flavourless, insipid, saltless
अळणी aḷaṇī

bland in Urdu

bland
نرم narm
More languagesFewer languages
bland in Malayalam
സൗമ്യമായ
bland in Kannada
ಸಾತ್ವಿಕವಾದ, ಸಪ್ಪೆ, ಚಪ್ಪೆ, ಸಪ್ಪ
bland in Gujarati
મોળું moḷũ, ફીકું phīkũ, ધોળું dhoḷũ
bland in Sanskrit
चिक्कण cikkáṇa
bland in Nepali
ब्लान्ड
bland in Tagalog
matabang
bland in Persian
بیمزه bi-maze
bland in Vietnamese
lạt, nhạt

Examples of bland in a sentence

  • The writers are dishing up more of the same with this bland suburban sitcom.
  • Mom-and-pop diners are disappearing from American streets and being replaced by bland corporate giants.
  • As for the legions of paintings, they veer between the bland and bizarre.

All 40 example sentences with bland

Synonyms of bland

30 more synonymsFewer synonyms

All synonyms of bland

Forms of bland

Adjective
comparativeblander
superlativeblandest
Verb
third-person singular presentblands
present participleblanding
past participleblanded
pastblanded
Noun
pluralblands
alternative formblaind
alternative formblaund

Origin of bland

Borrowed from Latin blandus (“pleasant”).

From Middle English blanden, blonden, from Old English blandan (“to blend, mix, mingle; trouble, disturb, corrupt”), from Proto-Germanic *blandaną (“to mix, blend”). Cognate with Icelandic blanda, Norwegian, Danish blande, Swedish blanda. See also blend.

From Middle English bland, from Old English bland, blond (“blending, mixture, confusion”), from Proto-Germanic *blandą (“a mixing, mixture”), from Proto-Indo-European *bʰlendʰ- (“to grow turbid, dim, see badly, be blind”). Cognate with Icelandic blanda (“a mixture of liquids, especially of hot whey and water”).

Words formed from bland

Words that rhyme with bland

48 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about bland

What does bland mean?
Bland means having a soothing effect; not irritating or stimulating.
What is bland in Hindi?
Bland in Hindi is फीका (phīkā). See Bland meaning in Hindi.
What part of speech is bland?
Bland can be an adjective, a verb, a noun or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce bland?
Bland is pronounced /blænd/ (UK).

Words near bland in the dictionary

  1. Blanco County
  2. blancoed
  3. blancoing
  4. blancos
  5. blancs
  6. bland
  7. Bland County
  8. Bland-White-Garland syndrome
  9. Blanda
  10. Blandain
  11. blandander

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: bland (page history and authors); Bland (page history and authors); फीका (Hindi) (page history and authors); bland (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); अळणी (Marathi) (page history and authors); نرم (Urdu) (page history and authors); bland (Malayalam Wiktionary) (page history and authors); bland (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors); ધોળું (Gujarati) (page history and authors); चिक्कण (Sanskrit) (page history and authors); bland (Nepali, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license). 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-ca-bland.ogg.

Cite this entry: “bland.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/bland. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.