Word.ws English Dictionary

talk through one's hat

talk through one's hat verb: to speak lacking expertise, authority, or knowledge; to invent or fabricate facts.

Verb

talk through one's hat (third-person singular simple present talks through one's hat, present participle talking through one's hat, simple past and past participle talked through one's hat)

  1. (idiomatic) To speak lacking expertise, authority, or knowledge; to invent or fabricate facts.
    • "Mr. Pride said to me a moment ago that they spoke better English in Boston than any other place in the world."
      "Did he, though, Lady Lawless? That's good. Well, I guess he was only talking through his hat."c. 1900, Gilbert Parker, At The Sign Of The Eagle
  2. (idiomatic) To assert something as true or valid; to bluff.
    • No, sir, she yust standing pat, / And vonce more she tal her father, / “Yu ban talking tru yure hat!”1905, “The Norsk Nightingale”, in Popular Mechanics, page 478
    • He's conceited and opinionative and argues all the time, even when he knows perfectly well that he's talking through his hat.1922, P. G. Wodehouse, chapter 14, in Right Ho, Jeeves

Synonyms of talk through one's hat

Forms of talk through one's hat

third-person singular presenttalks through one's hat
present participletalking through one's hat
past participletalked through one's hat
pasttalked through one's hat

Origin of talk through one's hat

Attested from the late 19th century in the United States in the sense of “bluff”; the sense “speak without authority or knowledge” developed later. Although some people speculate a connection to a former requirement that British Members of Parliament wear hats, the connection is implausible.

Questions about talk through one's hat

What does talk through one's hat mean?
Talk through one's hat means to speak lacking expertise, authority, or knowledge; to invent or fabricate facts.
What part of speech is talk through one's hat?
Talk through one's hat is a verb.
What is the past tense of talk through one's hat?
The past tense of talk through one's hat is talked through one's hat.

Words near talk through one's hat in the dictionary

  1. talk the legs off a potted
  2. talk the legs off a potting
  3. talk the talk
  4. talk through
  5. talk through one's ass
  6. talk through one's hat
  7. talk through one's nose
  8. talk time
  9. talk times
  10. talk to
  11. talk to a brick wall

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: talk through one's hat (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.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-au-talk through one's hat.ogg.

Cite this entry: “talk through one's hat.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/talk_through_one%27s_hat. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.