bluing

[bloo-ing] Origin

blu·ing

[bloo-ing]
noun Chemistry.
a substance, as indigo, used to whiten clothes or give them a bluish tinge.
Also, blueing.


Origin:
1660–70; blue + -ing1

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Bluing is always a great word to know.
So is fluoride. Does it mean:
a salt of hydrofluoric acid consisting of fluorine, as sodium fluoride, NaF, or a compound containing fluorine, as methyl fluoride, CH3F
the condition existing when a chemical reaction and its reverse reaction proceed at equal rates
Dictionary.com Unabridged

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.
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
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.
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

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

blew, blue.


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


14. happy.

Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2012.
Cite This Source Link To bluing
Collins
World English Dictionary
blueing or bluing (ˈbluːɪŋ)
 
n
1.  a blue material, such as indigo, used in laundering to counteract yellowing
2.  the formation of a film of blue oxide on a steel surface
 
bluing or bluing
 
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
"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
EXPAND
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
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.
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