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blues

 [blooz]   Origin

blues

1   [blooz]
noun
1.
the blues, (used with a plural verb) depressed spirits; despondency; melancholy: This rainy spell is giving me the blues.
2.
(used with a singular verb) Jazz.
a.
a song, originating with American blacks, that is marked by the frequent occurrence of blue notes, and that takes the basic form, customarily improvised upon in performance, of a 12-bar chorus consisting of a 3-line stanza with the second line repeating the first.
b.
the genre constituting such songs.
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Origin:
1800–10, Americanism; compare blue devils

Related forms
blues·y, adjective

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Blues is always a great word to know.
So is doohickey. Does it mean:
a printed punctuation mark (‽), available only in some typefaces, designed to combine the question mark (?) and the exclamation point (!), indicating a mixture of query and interjection, as after a rhetorical question.
a gadget; dingus; thingumbob.
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Dictionary.com Unabridged

blues

2   [blooz]
noun (used with a plural verb)
1.
any of various blue military uniforms worn by members of the U.S. armed services: dress blues.
2.
a blue uniform for work; blue work clothes: a doctor in surgical blues.
3.
Informal. police: The blues keep this neighborhood safe.
Origin:
see blue, -s3

blue

   [bloo] noun, adjective, blu·er, blu·est, verb, blued, blu·ing or blue·ing.
noun
1.
the pure color of a clear sky; the primary color between green and violet in the visible spectrum, an effect of light with a wavelength between 450 and 500 nm.
2.
bluing.
3.
something having a blue color: Place the blue next to the red.
4.
a person who wears blue or is a member of a group characterized by some blue symbol: Tomorrow the blues will play the browns.
5.
(often initial capital letter) a member of the Union army in the American Civil War or the army itself. Compare gray (def. 13).
EXPAND
6.
bluestocking.
7.
blue ribbon (def. 1).
8.
any of several blue-winged butterflies of the family Lycaenidae.
9.
Printing. blueline.
10.
the blue,
a.
the sky.
b.
the sea.
c.
the remote distance: They've vanished into the blue somewhere.
COLLAPSE
adjective
11.
of the color of blue: a blue tie.
12.
(initial capital letter) of or pertaining to the Union army in the American Civil War.
13.
(of the skin) discolored by cold, contusion, fear, or vascular collapse.
14.
depressed in spirits; dejected; melancholy: She felt blue about not being chosen for the team.
15.
holding or offering little hope; dismal; bleak: a blue outlook.
EXPAND
16.
characterized by or stemming from rigid morals or religion: statutes that were blue and unrealistic.
17.
marked by blasphemy: The air was blue with oaths.
18.
(of an animal's pelage) grayish-blue.
19.
indecent; somewhat obscene; risqué: a blue joke or film.
COLLAPSE
verb (used with object)
20.
to make blue; dye a blue color.
21.
to tinge with bluing: Don't blue your clothes till the second rinse.
verb (used without object)
22.
to become or turn blue.
Idioms
23.
blue in the face, exhausted and speechless, as from excessive anger, physical strain, etc.: I reminded him about it till I was blue in the face.
24.
out of the blue, suddenly and unexpectedly: The inheritance came out of the blue as a stroke of good fortune.
Origin:
1250–1300; Middle English blewe < Anglo-French blew, bl(i)u, bl(i)ef blue, livid, discolored, Old French blo, blau (French bleu) < Germanic *blǣwaz; compare Old English blǣwen, contraction of blǣhǣwen deep blue, perse (see blae, hue), Old Frisian blāw, Middle Dutch blā(u), Old High German blāo (German blau), Old Norse blār

Related forms
blue·ly, adverb
blue·ness, noun
half-blue, adjective
un·blued, adjective

Can be confused: blew, blue.

Synonyms
1. azure, cerulean, sapphire. 14. despondent, unhappy, morose, doleful, dispirited, sad, glum, downcast. 15. gloomy, dispiriting. 16. righteous, puritanical, moral, severe, prudish.

Antonyms
14. happy.

Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2012.
Cite This Source Link To Blues
Collins
World English Dictionary
blues (bluːz)
 
—pl n
1.  a feeling of depression or deep unhappiness
2.  a type of folk song devised by Black Americans at the beginning of the 20th century, usually employing a basic 12-bar chorus, the tonic, subdominant, and dominant chords, frequent minor intervals, and blue notes
 
'bluesy
 
—adj

Blues (bluːz)
 
—pl n
(Brit) the Blues the Royal Horse Guards

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 10th Edition
2009 © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009
Cite This Source
Etymonline
Word Origin & History

blues
as a music form featuring flatted thirds and sevenths, possibly c.1895 (though officially 1912, in W.C. Handy's "Memphis Blues"); meaning "depression, low spirits" goes back to 1741, from adj. blue "low-spirited," late 14c.
EXPAND

blue
"lewd, indecent" recorded from 1840 (in form blueness, in an essay of Carlyle's); the sense connection is unclear, and is opposite to that in blue laws (q.v.). John Mactaggart's "Scottish Gallovidian Encyclopedia" (1824) containing odd words he had learned while growing
up in Galloway and elsewhere in Scotland, has an entry for Thread o'Blue, "any little smutty touch in song-singing, chatting, or piece of writing." Farmer ["Slang and Its Analogues Past and Present," 1890] offers the theory that this meaning derives from the blue dress uniforms issued to harlots in houses of correction, but he writes that the earlier slang authority John Camden Hotten "suggests it as coming from the French Bibliothèque Bleu, a series of books of very questionable character," and adds, from Hotten, that, "Books or conversation of an entirely opposite nature are said to be Brown or Quakerish, i.e., serious, grave, decent."
COLLAPSE
Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper
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American Heritage
Cultural Dictionary

blues definition


A kind of jazz that evolved from the music of African-Americans, especially work songs and spirituals, in the early twentieth century. Blues pieces often express worry or depression.

The American Heritage® New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition
Copyright © 2005 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
Cite This Source
Slang Dictionary

blue definition


  1. mod.
    depressed; melancholy. : That music always makes me blue.
  2. mod.
    obscene; vulgar; dirty. : Those blue jokes don't go over very well around here.
  3. n.
    the sky; the heavens. : The idea came to me right out of the blue.
  4. mod.
    alcohol intoxicated. : You might say I'm blue. Others might note that I am stoned.
  5. n.
    an amphetamine tablet or capsule, especially a blue one. (Drugs.) : How are blues different from reds and yellows?
  6. n.
    a police officer; the police. : The blues will be here in a minute.
  7. n.
    a 10-mg tablet of Valium. (Drugs.) : In treatment they kept giving me blues to calm me down. Now I can't live without them.
Dictionary of American Slang and Colloquial Expressions by Richard A. Spears.Fourth Edition.
Copyright 2007. Published by McGraw Hill.
Cite This Source
American Heritage
Idioms & Phrases

blues

see have the blues.

The American Heritage® Dictionary of Idioms by Christine Ammer.
Copyright © 1997. Published by Houghton Mifflin.
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