to talk through one's hat
1
9.9
- idiom
- Informal
:
hablar sin saber
- Don't just talk through your hat; please provide some facts to support your opinion.
Examples
-
Ah, you're talking through your hat.
-
Now you are really talking through your hat.
Blog text (4) -
You're talking through your hat.
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You're talking through your hat, same as always.
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You're talking through your hat.
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You're talking through your hat now.
Fiction book (1998) -
In the debate, he was just talking through his hat, making claims that were clearly unsubstantiated.
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She realized that he was talking through her hat when he failed to back up his arguments with any evidence.
Synonyms
79
9.3
To speak in a way that tries to trick someone
42
9.3
To speak in a way that is not honest to trick people or make yourself look good
3
9.9
Speak as if you know about something when you do not
Talk for a long time saying things that are not true or silly
To say nonsense or unimportant things to avoid giving a clear answer
Antonyms
Surface Forms
Morphology
talk + through + one's + hat
The sense 'to speak without knowing the facts' is not derivable from the literal meanings of 'talk' + 'through' + 'one's' + 'hat'; 'hat' has no natural link to truthfulness and the construction is a conventional idiom. This phrase is a colloquial idiom whose meaning must be learned as a whole rather than composed from its parts, so a B1 learner knowing the individual words would likely not predict the idiomatic sense.
Etymology
Talk through one's hat may come from the image of a person with their hat pulled low over their eyes so they cannot see. If you cannot see, you might say things you do not know, so the phrase came to mean 'to speak without knowing the facts'.