Bland means having almost no taste at all. Bland food, a bland sauce, taste bland.
It is a criticism in cooking and a prescription in medicine, where a bland diet is deliberately unseasoned for a sensitive stomach. Applied to a person, a film or a statement it means inoffensive to the point of dullness — a bland reply, a bland smile. Note blandness; and that bland comes from a Latin word meaning smooth or flattering, which is where the sense of the inoffensive comes from.
1adjectiveblandHaving almost no taste at all.
“The hospital food was so bland that I asked for salt and pepper.”
Patternbland + noun (food, taste, diet) · rather / too bland · blandness
2adjectiveinoffensiveInoffensive to the point of dullness.
“The minister gave a bland statement that avoided every difficult question.”
bland is a quality of dullness.
The Latin meant pleasant and soft: bland food is so soft and mild that it has no taste left at all.
hooks ontopleasant
Latin blandus meant smooth or flattering, which gives blandish and blandishment. The English sense of tasteless grew from the idea of something too smooth to notice.
Latin
blandus — pleasant
English, today
bland
Borrowed from Latin blandus (“pleasant”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA
Practised in In the Kitchen