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blue

[bloo]

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noun

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.

bluing.

something having a blue color: Place the blue next to the red.

a person who wears blue or is a member of a group characterized by some blue symbol: Tomorrow the blues will play the browns.

(often initial capital letter

) a member of the Union army in the American Civil War or the army itself. Compare gray (def. 13).

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bluestocking.

blue ribbon (def. 1).

any of several blue-winged butterflies of the family Lycaenidae.

Printing. blueline.

10.

the blue,

the sky.

the sea.

the remote distance: They've vanished into the blue somewhere.

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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.

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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.

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Blue is one of our favorite verbs.

So is skedaddle. Does it mean:

to run away hurriedly; flee.

to flee; abscond:

LEARN MORE FUN, UNUSUAL VERBS WITH WORD DYNAMO...

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.
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Link To blue

Example Sentences

Every grader of blue books was once a writer of blue books, so it might help to think about the process from that end.

The blue tuna harvesting is beyond any sustainable population recovery level.

Eastern and western bluebirds have a reddish brown breast, which contrasts with their predominately blue plumage.

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Every grader of blue books was once a writer of blue books, so it might help to think about the process from that end.

The blue tuna harvesting is beyond any sustainable population recovery level.

Eastern and western bluebirds have a reddish brown breast, which contrasts with their predominately blue plumage.

Picture a geometric figure that's colored partly red and partly blue.

Rather, the dust grains simply reflect blue light more efficiently than red wavelengths.

Perk up a green salad with juicy-sweet berries and flavorful blue cheese crumbles.

Advanced computer modeling confirms that the world's largest blue diamond boasts an unsavory past.

And it seems that the opening skirmishes are taking place on campuses, over water in little blue bottles.

Blue whales have complex calls that can be heard for miles.

More elusive forms, dubbed sprites and blue jets, flit above the clouds.

After she dried off, she put on a blue velour robe that was hanging behind the door.

In seedling plants, blossom color varies from white through pure light blue to sky blue.

While there are many kinds of blue triplet lilies, few have proper names.

If blue whales above water are only putatively blue, then below the surface they go indisputably turquoise.

And while blue light causes these brain cells to fire, yellow light stops them.

Add to this the almost vertical body, with tail extended in line, and glorious blue legs and feet.

Try your favorite local blue cheese in this tasty risotto.

In this captured moment, out of the limelight, the ballerina is awash in shades of blue.

At the horizon, the blue apparent sun is highest and the red apparent sun is the lowest.

Forget about sapphires, cornflowers or even the sky-nature's finest blue is glacier blue.

Foliage of seedlings varies in color from dark green through all shades of blue green to steely blue.

Summer male: plumage unmistakable, entirely bright blue.

Their irises are blue to light gray and their pupils dark red to light gray.

He planted indigo, a crop much in demand for making blue dye.

Small clusters of blue flowers from midsummer to frost.

Snow geese are known for their white plumage, but many of them are actually darker, gray-brown birds known as blue geese.

Around stars hotter and bluer than our sun, plants would tend to absorb blue light and could look green to yellow to red.

Individual fish can be distinguished in photos due to differences in the shape of the blue lines around their eyes.

Finely divided foliage and spikelike clusters of blue flowers in early spring, often continuing into summer.

Kids can print illustrations of blue whales and other animals to color or use in school projects.

One of his first pieces was a large, somber statue of the son who killed himself, dressed in a blue button-down shirt.

Blueberries don't have to be blue any more than lemonade has to be yellow.

The color red can make people's work more accurate, but blue can make people more creative, a study suggests.

Yes, there are some blue collar jobs that are safe or.

From a cloudless blue sky the resplendent solar disk dazzles the eye.

The simple addition of caramelized apples and salty blue cheese gives this tasty soup a sophisticated feel.

They fill their blue books with disconnected strings of names and dates.

Blue waters lap around bays shaded by coconut palms.

Take a deep breath and dive down into the world of blue whales.

The blue orchards rarely sting and, because of their solitary nature, do not swarm.

While the generals on both sides deliberated, troops in blue and gray fidgeted.

The idea is that the blue lines help skiers and boarders see the course more effectively.

The lake, on a sunny and cloudless day, is a spectacular hue of blue that.

Blue lasers also endow laser printers with resolutions even better than they have today.

Explore blue whales' size, weight, and behavior and learn what threatens their survival.

Large, light blue fruit with excellent, sweet flavor.

Blue icons show two of his platoons sweeping through the western half of the town.

Instead of showing a country divided into red and blue states, the map.

It was bitterly divided into red and blue states with only a handful in the middle.

The blue ocean slug, a type of nudibranch, is a striking specimen with extraordinary hues that provide two.

Use a star stencil and colored vellum to make red and blue stars.

Colloidal silver, a quack health supplement, has but one genuine benefit: it may turn your skin a pleasant slate blue.

Blue is the safest color to wear, as black can look funereal.

The blue part of the image is an isopod-a small crustacean.

From yellow dwarfs to blue supergiants, stars continue to challenge astronomers' understanding of the universe.

The blue screen netting over the scaffolding is mostly decorative.

Give hanging lights a festive kick with blue tea candles, then suspend them by replacing their hanging chains with red and.

Korean researchers have invented a material that can switch back and forth between pink, green, and blue colors.

Scholars have less to say on what seems a bolt from the blue.

They use several red, green and blue lasers and feed the light from these into an optical-fibre cable to produce white light.

Dive alongside blue whales and crack their secret code of communication.

But a recent discovery from the deep blue sea may force a revision of that.

Take red, white, and blue outdoors with four fun party ideas.

Blue light is particularly good at helping the body break down bilirubin, which causes the condition.

The great blue heron is ideally adapted for its wetland home.

Because in photosynthesis, plant chlorophyll uses wavelengths of blue and our sun's abundant red.

Dark red indicates the densest road networks, dark blue the sparsest.

Smaller dots emit colors closer to the blue end of the spectrum.

Salvaged lumber some stained a vibrant blue was used for siding beams and flooring.

Walker used a type of darkfield microscopy in which the object is shot against a blue screen.

Uncover the magical wonders of the deep blue as you explore the many marine exhibits and wildlife that fill the aquarium.

The blue light shines through the orange of the leg's exoskeleton.

The barn stands at attention, its walls planted in moonlit snow and its peak nosing toward a deep blue sky.

The researchers changed the rules so that chasing red dots and avoiding blue dots were rewarded instead.

Stuff a few pieces of blue cheese into the cut top of each fig.

In this image, vegetation is displayed in red, and flooded areas are black and dark blue.

The color-coded image above uses red and white to represent the highest elevations, and blue and purple represent the lowest.

Start with blue seas teeming with fish and coral, crystal.

He was depicted as a blue man fully armed with hummingbird feathers on his.

Now he was a hardscrabbler stuck in a wind-whipped corner of the world between the blue spruce forest and the sea.

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Collins

World English Dictionary

blue (bluː)

—n
1.	any of a group of colours, such as that of a clear unclouded sky, that have wavelengths in the range 490--445 nanometres. Blue is the complementary colour of yellow and with red and green forms a set of primary coloursRelated: cyanic
2.	a dye or pigment of any of these colours
3.	blue cloth or clothing: dressed in blue
4.	a. a sportsperson who represents or has represented Oxford or Cambridge University and has the right to wear the university colour (dark blue for Oxford, light blue for Cambridge): an Oxford blue
	b. the honour of so representing one's university
5.	(Brit) an informal name for Tory
6.	any of numerous small blue-winged butterflies of the genera Lampides, Polyommatus, etc: family Lycaenidae
7.	archaic short for bluestocking
8.	slang a policeman
9.	archery a blue ring on a target, between the red and the black, scoring five points
10.	a blue ball in snooker, etc
11.	another name for blueing
12.	slang (Austral), (NZ) an argument or fight: he had a blue with a taxi driver
13.	slang (Austral), (NZ) Also: bluey a court summons, esp for a traffic offence
14.	informal (Austral), (NZ) a mistake; error
15.	out of the blue apparently from nowhere; unexpectedly: the opportunity came out of the blue
16.	into the blue into the unknown or the far distance

—*adj* , bluer, bluest
17.	of the colour blue
18.	(of the flesh) having a purple tinge, as from cold or contusion
19.	depressed, moody, or unhappy
20.	dismal or depressing: a blue day
21.	indecent, titillating, or pornographic: blue films
22.	bluish in colour or having parts or marks that are bluish: a blue fox; a blue whale
23.	rare See blue blood aristocratic; noble; patrician: a blue family
24.	(US) Compare red relating to, supporting, or representing the Democratic Party

—vb , bluer, bluest, blues, blueing, bluing, blued
25.	to make, dye, or become blue
26.	(tr) to treat (laundry) with blueing
27.	slang (tr) to spend extravagantly or wastefully; squander

Related: cyanic

[C13: from Old French bleu, of Germanic origin; compare Old Norse blār, Old High German blāo, Middle Dutch blā; related to Latin flāvus yellow]

'bluely

—*adv*

'blueness

—n

Blue or Bluey (bluː)

—n
	informal (Austral) a nickname for a person with red hair

Bluey or Bluey

—n

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

Word Origin & History

blue

c.1300, bleu, blwe, etc., from O.Fr. blo "pale, pallid, wan, light-colored; blond; discolored; blue, blue-gray," from Frankish *blao, from P.Gmc. *blæwaz (cf. O.E. blaw, O.S., O.H.G. blao, Dan. blaa, Swed. blå, O.Fris. blau, M.Du. bla, Du. blauw, Ger. blau "blue"), from PIE *bhle-was "light-colored,

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blue, blond, yellow." "The exact color to which the Gmc. term applies varies in the older dialects; M.H.G. bla is also "yellow," whereas the Scandinavian words may refer esp. to a deep, swarthy black, e.g. O.N. blamaðr, N.Icel. blamaður 'Negro' " [Buck]. Replaced O.E. blaw, from the same PIE root, which also yielded L. flavus "yellow," O.Sp. blavo "yellowish-gray," Gk. phalos "white," Welsh blawr "gray," O.N. bla "livid" (the meaning in black and blue), showing the usual slippery definition of color words in I.E. The present spelling is since 16c., from French influence (Mod.Fr. bleu).

"Few words enter more largely into the composition of slang, and colloquialisms bordering on slang, than does the word BLUE. Expressive alike of the utmost contempt, as of all that men hold dearest and love best, its manifold combinations, in ever varying shades of meaning, greet the philologist at every turn." [John S. Farmer, "Slang and Its Analogues Past and Present," 1890, p.252]

The color of constancy since Chaucer at least, but apparently for no deeper reason than the rhyme in true blue (c.1500). From early times blue was the distinctive color of the dress of servants, which may be the reason police uniforms are blue, a tradition Farmer dates to Elizabethan times. For blue ribbon see cordon bleu under cordon. Many IE languages seem to have had a word to describe the color of the sea, encompasing blue and green and gray; e.g. Ir. glass (see Chloe); O.E. hæwen "blue, gray," related to har (see hoar); Serbo-Cr. sinji "gray-blue, sea-green;" Lith. yvas, Rus. sivyj "gray."

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."

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Slang Dictionary

blue definition

mod.
depressed; melancholy. : That music always makes me blue.
mod.
obscene; vulgar; dirty. : Those blue jokes don't go over very well around here.
n.
the sky; the heavens. : The idea came to me right out of the blue.
mod.
alcohol intoxicated. : You might say I'm blue. Others might note that I am stoned.
n.
an amphetamine tablet or capsule, especially a blue one. (Drugs.) : How are blues different from reds and yellows?
n.
a police officer; the police. : The blues will be here in a minute.
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.
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FOLDOC

Computing Dictionary

Blue definition

A language proposed by Softech to meet the DoD Ironman requirements which led to Ada. ["On the BLUE Language Submitted to the DoD", E.W. Dijkstra, SIGPLAN Notices 13(10):10-15 (Oct 1978)].

Easton

Bible Dictionary

Blue definition

generally associated with purple (Ex. 25:4; 26:1, 31, 36, etc.). It is supposed to have been obtained from a shellfish of the Mediterranean, the Helix ianthina of Linnaeus. The robe of the high priest's ephod was to be all of this colour (Ex. 28:31), also the loops of the curtains (26:4) and the ribbon of the breastplate (28:28). Blue cloths were also made for various sacred purposes (Num. 4:6, 7, 9, 11, 12). (See COLOUR.)

Easton's 1897 Bible Dictionary
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American Heritage

Idioms & Phrases

blue

In addition to the idioms beginning with blue, also see between a rock and a hard place (devil and deep blue sea); black and blue; bolt from the blue; have the blues; into thin air (the blue); like greased lightning (a blue streak); once in a blue moon; out of a clear blue sky; talk one's arm off (a blue streak; until blue in the face).