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blue - 12 dictionary results

blue

  [bloo] noun, adjective, blu⋅er, blu⋅est, verb, blued, blu⋅ing or blue⋅ing.
Use blue in a Sentence
–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).
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.
–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.
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.
–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; ME blewe < AF blew, bl(i)u, bl(i)ef blue, livid, discolored, OF blo, blau (F bleu) < Gmc *blǣwaz; cf. OE blǣwen, contr. of blǣhǣwen deep blue, perse (see blae, hue ), OFris blāw, MD blā(u), OHG blāo (G blau), ON blār

Related forms:
bluely, adverb
blueness, noun

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.

blue⋅line

  [bloo-lahyn]
–noun Printing.
a print made on light-sensitive paper and used as a proof for checking the position of stripped-up negatives or positives and copy prior to platemaking.
Also, blue.

Origin:
blue + line 1
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2009.
Cite This Source Link To blue
blue   (blōō)   
n.  
  1. The hue of that portion of the visible spectrum lying between green and indigo, evoked in the human observer by radiant energy with wavelengths of approximately 420 to 490 nanometers; any of a group of colors that may vary in lightness and saturation, whose hue is that of a clear daytime sky; one of the additive or light primaries; one of the psychological primary hues.
    1. A pigment or dye imparting this hue.
    2. Bluing.
    3. An object having this hue.
    4. Dress or clothing of this hue: The ushers wore blue.
    5. A person who wears a blue uniform.
    6. blues A dress blue uniform, especially that of the U.S. Army.
    7. A member of the Union Army in the Civil War.
    8. The Union Army.
    9. The sky.
    10. The sea.
    1. An object having this hue.
    2. Dress or clothing of this hue: The ushers wore blue.
    3. A person who wears a blue uniform.
    4. blues A dress blue uniform, especially that of the U.S. Army.
    5. A member of the Union Army in the Civil War.
    6. The Union Army.
    7. The sky.
    8. The sea.
    1. A person who wears a blue uniform.
    2. blues A dress blue uniform, especially that of the U.S. Army.
    3. A member of the Union Army in the Civil War.
    4. The Union Army.
    5. The sky.
    6. The sea.
  5. often Blue
    1. A member of the Union Army in the Civil War.
    2. The Union Army.
    3. The sky.
    4. The sea.
  6. A bluefish.
  7. A small blue butterfly of the family Lycaenidae.
    1. The sky.
    2. The sea.
adj.   blu·er, blu·est
  1. Of the color blue.
  2. Bluish or having parts that are blue or bluish, as the blue spruce and the blue whale.
  3. Having a gray or purplish color, as from cold or contusion.
  4. Wearing blue.
    1. Gloomy; depressed. See Synonyms at depressed.
    2. Dismal; dreary: a blue day.
  6. Puritanical; strict.
  7. Aristocratic; patrician.
  8. Indecent; risqué: a blue joke; a blue movie.
tr. & intr.v.   blued, blu·ing, blues
To make or become blue.

[Middle English blue, bleu, from Old French bleu, of Germanic origin; see bhel-1 in Indo-European roots.]
blue'ly adv., blue'ness n.
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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Blue

Blue\, a. [Compar. Bluer; superl. Bluest.] [OE. bla, blo, blew, blue, Sw. bl?, D. blauw, OHG. bl?o, G. blau; but influenced in form by F. bleu, from OHG. bl[=a]o.]

1. Having the color of the clear sky, or a hue resembling it, whether lighter or darker; as, the deep, blue sea; as blue as a sapphire; blue violets. "The blue firmament." --Milton.

2. Pale, without redness or glare, -- said of a flame; hence, of the color of burning brimstone, betokening the presence of ghosts or devils; as, the candle burns blue; the air was blue with oaths.

3. Low in spirits; melancholy; as, to feel blue.

4. Suited to produce low spirits; gloomy in prospect; as, thongs looked blue. [Colloq.]

5. Severe or over strict in morals; gloom; as, blue and sour religionists; suiting one who is over strict in morals; inculcating an impracticable, severe, or gloomy mortality; as, blue laws.

6. Literary; -- applied to women; -- an abbreviation of bluestocking. [Colloq.]

The ladies were very blue and well informed. --Thackeray.

Blue asbestus. See Crocidolite.

Blue black, of, or having, a very dark blue color, almost black.

Blue blood. See under Blood.

Blue buck (Zo["o]l.), a small South African antelope (Cephalophus pygm[ae]us); also applied to a larger species ([AE]goceras leucoph[ae]us); the blaubok.

Blue cod (Zo["o]l.), the buffalo cod.

Blue crab (Zo["o]l.), the common edible crab of the Atlantic coast of the United States (Callinectes hastatus).

Blue curls (Bot.), a common plant (Trichostema dichotomum), resembling pennyroyal, and hence called also bastard pennyroyal.

Blue devils, apparitions supposed to be seen by persons suffering with delirium tremens; hence, very low spirits. "Can Gumbo shut the hall door upon blue devils, or lay them all in a red sea of claret?" --Thackeray.

Blue gage. See under Gage, a plum.

Blue gum, an Australian myrtaceous tree (Eucalyptus globulus), of the loftiest proportions, now cultivated in tropical and warm temperate regions for its timber, and as a protection against malaria. The essential oil is beginning to be used in medicine. The timber is very useful. See Eucalyptus.

Blue jack, Blue stone, blue vitriol; sulphate of copper.

Blue jacket, a man-of war's man; a sailor wearing a naval uniform.

Blue jaundice. See under Jaundice.

Blue laws, a name first used in the eighteenth century to describe certain supposititious laws of extreme rigor reported to have been enacted in New Haven; hence, any puritanical laws. [U. S.]

Blue light, a composition which burns with a brilliant blue flame; -- used in pyrotechnics and as a night signal at sea, and in military operations.

Blue mantle (Her.), one of the four pursuivants of the English college of arms; -- so called from the color of his official robes.

Blue mass, a preparation of mercury from which is formed the blue pill. --McElrath.

Blue mold, or mould, the blue fungus (Aspergillus glaucus) which grows on cheese. --Brande & C.

Blue Monday, a Monday following a Sunday of dissipation, or itself given to dissipation (as the Monday before Lent).

Blue ointment (Med.), mercurial ointment.

Blue Peter (British Marine), a blue flag with a white square in the center, used as a signal for sailing, to recall boats, etc. It is a corruption of blue repeater, one of the British signal flags.

Blue pill. (Med.) (a) A pill of prepared mercury, used as an aperient, etc. (b) Blue mass.

Blue ribbon. (a) The ribbon worn by members of the order of the Garter; -- hence, a member of that order. (b) Anything the attainment of which is an object of great ambition; a distinction; a prize. "These [scholarships] were the --blue ribbon of the college." --Farrar. (c) The distinctive badge of certain temperance or total abstinence organizations, as of the --Blue ribbon Army.

Blue ruin, utter ruin; also, gin. [Eng. Slang] --Carlyle.

Blue spar (Min.), azure spar; lazulite. See Lazulite.

Blue thrush (Zo["o]l.), a European and Asiatic thrush (Petrocossyphus cyaneas).

Blue verditer. See Verditer.

Blue vitriol (Chem.), sulphate of copper, a violet blue crystallized salt, used in electric batteries, calico printing, etc.

Blue water, the open ocean.

To look blue, to look disheartened or dejected.

True blue, genuine and thorough; not modified, nor mixed; not spurious; specifically, of uncompromising Presbyterianism, blue being the color adopted by the Covenanters.

For his religion . . . 'T was Presbyterian, true blue. --Hudibras.

Blue

Blue\ (bl[=u]), n. 1. One of the seven colors into which the rays of light divide themselves, when refracted through a glass prism; the color of the clear sky, or a color resembling that, whether lighter or darker; a pigment having such color. Sometimes, poetically, the sky.

2. A pedantic woman; a bluestocking. [Colloq.]

3. pl. [Short for blue devils.] Low spirits; a fit of despondency; melancholy. [Colloq.]

Berlin blue, Prussian blue.

Mineral blue. See under Mineral.

Prussian blue. See under Prussian.

Blue

Blue\, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Blued; p. pr. & vb. n. Bluing.] To make blue; to dye of a blue color; to make blue by heating, as metals, etc.
Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary, © 1996, 1998 MICRA, Inc.
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Language Translation for : blue
Spanish: azul,
German: blau,
Japanese: 青い
More Translations »

blue 
c.1300, bleu, blwe, etc., from O.Fr. bleu, from Frank. blao, from P.Gmc. *blæwaz, from PIE base *bhle-was "light-colored, 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 Fr. influence. The color of constancy since Chaucer at least, but apparently for no deeper reason than the rhyme in true blue (1500). Blue (adj.) "lewd" is recorded from 1840; the sense connection is unclear, and is opposite to that in blue laws (q.v.). Blueprint is from 1886; the fig. sense of "detailed plan" is first attested 1926. For blue ribbon, see cordon bleu under cordon. Blue moon emblematic of "very rarely" suggests something that, in fact, never happens (cf. at the Greek calends), as in this couplet from 1528:
Yf they say the mone is blewe,
We must beleve that it is true.
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. šyvas, Rus. sivyj "gray."
Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2001 Douglas Harper
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Main Entry: 1blue
Pronunciation: 'blü
Function: adjective
Inflected Forms: blu·er;blu·est
: of the color blue

Main Entry: 2blue
Function: noun
1 : a color whose hue is that of the clear sky or that of the portion of the color spectrum lying between green andviolet
2 : a pigment or dye that colors blue —see PRUSSIAN BLUE
Merriam-Webster's Medical Dictionary, © 2002 Merriam-Webster, Inc.
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Blue
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)].

The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing, © 1993-2007 Denis Howe
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Blue

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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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).

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