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blight

 - 4 dictionary results

blight

  [blahyt]
Use blight in a Sentence
–noun
1. Plant Pathology.
a. the rapid and extensive discoloration, wilting, and death of plant tissues.
b. a disease so characterized.
2. any cause of impairment, destruction, ruin, or frustration: Extravagance was the blight of the family.
3. the state or result of being blighted or deteriorated; dilapidation; decay: urban blight.
–verb (used with object)
4. to cause to wither or decay; blast: Frost blighted the crops.
5. to destroy; ruin; frustrate: Illness blighted his hopes.
–verb (used without object)
6. to suffer blight.
Origin:
1605–15; of uncert. orig.

Related forms:
blight⋅ing⋅ly, adverb

Synonyms:
2. curse, plague, scourge, bane.
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2009.
Cite This Source Link To blight
blight   (blīt)   
n.  

    1. Any of numerous plant diseases resulting in sudden conspicuous wilting and dying of affected parts, especially young, growing tissues.

    2. The condition or causative agent, such as a bacterium, fungus, or virus, that results in blight.

  2. An extremely adverse environmental condition, such as air pollution.

  3. Something that impairs growth, withers hopes and ambitions, or impedes progress and prosperity.

v.   blight·ed, blight·ing, blights

v.   tr.

  1. To cause (a plant, for example) to undergo blight.

  2. To have a deleterious effect on; ruin. See Synonyms at blast.

v.   intr.
To suffer blight.

[Origin unknown.]
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
Copyright © 2009 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
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Word Origin & History

blight 
1611, origin obscure, apparently emerged into literary speech from the talk of gardeners and farmers, perhaps ult. from O.E. blæce, blæcðu, a scrofulous skin condition and/or from O.N. blikna "become pale." Used in a general way of agricultural diseases, sometimes with suggestion of "invisible baleful influence;" hence figurative sense of "anything which withers hopes or prospects or checks prosperity" (1852). The verb in this sense is from 1712. Hence slang blighter (1896) "contemptible fellow," but often jocular.
Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2001 Douglas Harper
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Medical Dictionary

Main Entry: blight
Pronunciation: 'blIt
Function: noun
Australian : an inflammation of the eye in which the eyelids discharge a thick mucoussubstance that often seals them up for days and minute granular pustules develop inside the lid called also sandy blight
Merriam-Webster's Medical Dictionary, © 2002 Merriam-Webster, Inc.
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