Meaning
To speak confidently about a subject one does not actually understand, producing nonsense or wild exaggeration. Informal and dismissive; the speaker is presumed to be bluffing rather than merely mistaken, and the idiom doubles as a rebuke in the second person. Bluntly dismissive of a speaker's competence or honesty, so it belongs to casual argument rather than polite debate. Regional use: General English (American in origin).
Origin
The expression is American slang of the late nineteenth century. The earliest known print example, cited by the Oxford English Dictionary and the Random House Historical Dictionary of American Slang, is from the New York World of 1888: 'Dis is only a bluff dey're makin' - see! Dey're talkin' tru deir hats.' Stephen Crane used it in The Third Violet (1896), and Cassell's Dictionary of Slang glosses it as talking nonsense or exaggerating. Why a hat should stand for empty speech is unresolved. A theory connecting it to Joseph Smith translating with his face in a hat fits the dates but has no supporting evidence, and an English practice of ostentatious churchgoers praying into their hats, reported in Notes and Queries in 1923, was actually called 'talking to your hat', a distinct and defunct usage that may have developed independently. The most that can be said is that the image is of speech rendered muffled and empty.
Research Sources
References used to check this entry’s meaning, history, or documented forms.
Variants
- talk through one's hat
- talked through his hat
- talking through your hat
- you're talking through your hat
Usage Examples
- He was talking through his hat about sailing; he had never once left the harbour.
- The pundit was accused of talking through his hat after claiming the bridge would repair itself.
- You can talk through your hat at the pub if you like, but not in front of the auditors.