Note to Hamlet, 5.2.192-194: "most fann'd and winnow'd / opinions and do but blow them to their trial, / the bubbles are out"

Return
to
Hamlet,
Act 5, Scene 2, lines 192-194

most fann'd and winnow'd / opinions: —This is Hamlet's sarcastically redundant way of designating the snotty attitudes of people who think they have excellent taste in whom they talk to. and do but blow them to their trial, the bubbles are out: but just blow on them a little bit, to test them, and their bubbles are burst; i.e., just try to get something meaningful out of them, and they will show themselves to be dribbling idiots.