blue

comparative bluer · comparative more blue · superlative bluest · superlative most blue · alternative obsolete blew · alternative obsolete blewe

1. Of a blue hue.

   the deep blue sea

   3 more examples

   Why is the sky blue?

   He was wearing a blue t-shirt.

   Gerty's were of the bluest Irish blue, set off by lustrous lashes and dark expressive brows. Time was when those brows were not so silkily seductive

   1922 February 2, James Joyce, “[Episode 13]”, in Ulysses, Paris: Shakespeare and Company […], →OCLC

2. informalDepressed, melancholic, sad.

   But I'm bluer than blue / Sadder than sad.

   1978, Michael Johnson, Bluer Than Blue

   2 more examples

   “Heavens!” exclaimed Nina, “the blue-stocking and the fogy!—and yours are pale blue, Eileen!—you’re about as self-conscious as Drina—slumping there with your hair tumbling à la Mérode! Oh, it's very picturesque, of course, but a straight spine and good grooming is better.[…]”

   1907 August, Robert W[illiam] Chambers, chapter IX, in The Younger Set, New York, N.Y.: D. Appleton & Company, →OCLC

   "Will you play some of the 'Garden' now?" she asked. "I think I should like it. I'm just the least bit blue."

   1904, Guy Wetmore Carryl, The Transgression of Andrew Vane, Henry Holt and Company, page 140

   Synonyms: miserable, unhappy, atrabiliary, atrabilious, blitheless, dispirited, bummed out, chapfallen

3. Having a bluish or purplish shade to the skin due to a lack of oxygen to the normally deep-red red blood cells; cyanotic.

   My hands were blue with cold.

   1 more example

   The divers got them out of the car just in time – they were starting to turn blue.

4. Pale, without redness or glare.

   The candle burns blue.

5. Supportive of, run by (a member of), pertaining to, or dominated by a political party represented by the colour blue.
   1. USgovernmentSupportive of, run by (a member of), pertaining to, or dominated by the Democratic Party.First known use late 20th c.

      I live in a blue constituency.  Congress turned blue in the mid-term elections.

   2. AustraliangovernmentSupportive of or related to the Liberal Party.

      Illawarra turns blue in Liberal washout

   3. UKgovernmentSupportive of or related to the Conservative Party.
6. astronomyOf, dominated by, or shifted toward the higher-frequency, or "bluer", end of the electromagnetic spectrum.
7. particlenatural sciencesHaving a colour charge of blue.
8. Extra rare; left very raw and cold.

   Synonyms: mooing

9. Having a coat of fur of a slaty gray shade.
10. archaicSevere or overly strict in morals; gloomy.

    blue and sour religionists;  blue laws

11. archaicLiterary; scholarly; bluestockinged.

    Some of the ladies were very blue and well informed, reading Mrs. Somerville and frequenting the Royal Institution; others were severe and Evangelical, and held by Exeter Hall.

    1847 January – 1848 July, William Makepeace Thackeray, chapter 61, in Vanity Fair […], London: Bradbury and Evans […], published 1848, →OCLC

12. informalRisqué; obscene; profane; pornographic.

    a blue movie

    2 more examples

    His material is too blue for prime time.

    The air was blue with oaths.

    Synonyms: adult

13. datedslangDrunk.

    My wine I drank and oft got blue / On brandy, gin and whisky too— / Until my reputation gay, / Along with care, was cast away —

    1847, Jacob Carter, My Drunken Life, in Fifteen Chapters, from 1825 to 1847, page 76

plural blues · alternative obsolete blew · alternative obsolete blewe

1. countableuncountableThe colour of the clear sky or the deep sea; the colour midway between green and violet in the visible spectrum and one of the primary additive colours.

   She watches the yachts in the creamy evening blues.

   2004, David Mitchell, Cloud Atlas, London: Sceptre (Hodder and Stoughton), →ISBN

   2 more examples

   Lady Penrhyn was quite handsome enough to have spared one ingredient in her cup of fascination, but, unfortunately, having been married in her teens, she expected to live in them, and, never being reminded by the trials to which her sex is subject, of the flight of years, and the inroads of suffering, expected time to stand still, and the first bloom of existence (the blue on the plum) to remain as stationary as her own taste, for the pleasures of flirtation.

   1838 (date written), L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], chapter XVI, in Lady Anne Granard; or, Keeping up Appearances. […], volume I, London: Henry Colburn, […], published 1842, →OCLC, page 204

   Red No. 3, red No. 40, blue No. 2 and green No. 3 all have been linked with cancer or tumors in animals. Other sources say red No. 40 and yellow No. 5 and No. 6 contain or may be contaminated with known carcinogens.

   2025 March 29, Kristen Rogers, “Over half of US states are trying to eliminate food dyes. Here’s what you can do now”, in CNN

2. countableuncountableAnything coloured blue, especially to distinguish it from similar objects differing only in colour.

   I don't like red Smarties. Have you got a blue?

3. countableuncountableA blue dye or pigment.
4. uncountableBlue clothing.

   The boys in blue marched to the pipers.

   1. countablein pluraluncountableA blue uniform. See blues.
   2. countableuncountableA member of a sports team that wears blue colours; (in the plural) a nickname for the team as a whole. See also blues.

      Come on, you blues!

   3. countableslanguncountableball gamesAn umpire, in reference to the typical dark-blue colour of the umpire's uniform. Sometimes perceived by umpires as derogatory when used by players or coaches while disputing a call.

      He was safe! Terrible call, blue!

   4. countableuncountableSporting colours awarded by a university or other institution for sporting achievement, such as representing one's university, especially and originally at Oxford and Cambridge Universities in England. See also full blue, half blue.

      He excelled at rowing and received a blue in the sport at Oxford.

   5. countableuncountableA person who has received such sporting colours.

      He was a rugby blue at Cambridge.

   6. countableslanguncountableA member of law enforcement.

      He dialed Kathy to be sure she was okay and see if the blues arrived. She was crying when she picked up the phone. “Kathy, honey, I'm here. It'll be okay. Are the police there?”

      2022, Jim Malloy, Die, Mother Goose, Die

   7. countablehistoricaluncountableA bluestocking.
5. countableuncountableThe sky, literally or figuratively.

   The balloon floated up into the blue.

   1 more example

   His request for leave came out of the blue.

6. countableuncountableThe ocean; deep waters.
7. countableuncountableThe far distance; a remote or distant place.

   The problem with buffalo as well as most African antelopes as a steady diet is that they have very little marbling or body fat and, after six months out in the blue, one dreams at night of a T-bone steak sizzling in great globules of yellow fat.

   1978, Peter Hathaway Capstick, Death in the Long Grass, →ISBN

8. countableuncountableA dog or cat with a slaty gray coat.

   On average, blues and other dilutes have weaker coats and skin problems seem more prevalent in the dilutes.

   2000, Joe Stahlkuppe, American Pit Bull Terrier Handbook, page 131

9. countableuncountableball gamesOne of the colour balls used in snooker, with a value of five points.
10. countableuncountablebiologyAny of the butterflies of the subfamily Polyommatinae in the family Lycaenidae, most of which have blue on their wings.

    1 more example

    The large and handsome spectre-butterfly, Hestia durvillei; the pale-winged peacock butterfly, Drusilla catops; and the most brilliant and wonderful of the clear-winged moths, Cocytia durvillei, were especially interesting, as well, as several little "blues," equalling in brilliancy and beauty anything the butterfly world can produce.

    1869, Alfred Russel Wallace, The Malay Archipelago, volume II, London: Macmillan and Co., page 199

11. countableuncountableA bluefish.

    When snow falls on the roses, when a mako is beheaded, when the weaks and blues swim south

    1974 February 2, Roger Frye, “Warm Heart”, in Gay Community News, volume 1, number 32, page 20

    1 more example

    Blues are about as vicious a fish as you'll find on the Atlantic seaboard — they will continue to slash through schools of bait even after they have eaten so much that they're constantly regurgitating shredded baitfish.

    2012, Lenny Rudow, Rudow's Guide to Fishing the Mid Atlantic, page 102

12. AustraliacolloquialcountableuncountableAn argument or brawl.

    "I had a blue with Dad," said Fay. "He wanted to drive us, I wanted to walk."

    2004, Tim Winton, The Turning (short stories), Picador UK Paperback edition 2006. Short story, 'Small Mercies' (at p.91)

    3 more examples

    If they had a blue between themselves, they kept it there, it never flowed out onto the streets to innocent people — like a lot of things that have been happenin′ on the streets today.

    2008, Cheryl Jorgensen, The Taint, page 135

    On another occasion, there was a blue between Henry Daniels and Merv Wilson down at the pig sale. I don′t know what it was about, it only lasted a minute or so, but they shook hands when it was over and that was the end of it.

    2009, John Gilfoyle, Remember Cannon Hill, page 102

    I was a bit disappointed. Was that it? No abuse like Lord Byron had endured? Not that I was wishing that upon myself. It was just that a blue between my parents, albeit a raging, foul, bile-spitting hate fest, was not exactly Charles Dickens.

    2011, Julietta Jameson, Me, Myself and Lord Byron, unnumbered page

13. countableuncountableA liquid with an intense blue colour, added to a laundry wash to prevent yellowing of white clothes.

    It was applied methodically, carefully, resolutely, as in the fashion of a Satin-bird with charcoal, desiccated wood or blue from laundry-bags.

    1948, Alec H. Chisholm, Bird Wonders of Australia, page 13

    Synonyms: blueing, bluer

14. countableuncountableAny of several processes to protect metal against rust.
15. UKcountableuncountableA type of firecracker.

    Lord Lyttelton's Life by Dr Johnson […] which a whole tribe of Blues, with Mrs Montagu at their Head, have Vowed to execrate and revenge […]

    1781, Frances Burney, Journals & Letters, Penguin, published 2001, page 172

16. countableparticleuncountablenatural sciencesOne of the three colour charges for quarks.
17. UKcountableuncountablegovernmentA member or supporter of the Conservative Party.

    He is a true blue.

18. countableuncountableA blue cheese.

    "No, just get over here. You need to try this one!" she exclaimed as she cheesed up a chunk of bread with one of our blues.

    2005, J. B. Dann, Anecdotal, page 233

    1 more example

    Blues are made via the introduction of molds from the genus Penicillum roqueforti, which are normally added to the milk toward the beginning of the cheesemaking process.

    2012, Culture Magazine, Laurel Miller, Thalassa Skinner, Cheese For Dummies (page 55)

19. slanguncountableRisqué or pornographic material.

    Fuzz grinned and nodded at the stage. 'Bit of blue for the lads.' […] The stage was dimly lit, and populated by Nubian slaves and harem girls in artfully draped deshabille.

    2014 February 5, Charlie Flowers, Kill Order, Lulu.com, →ISBN, page 176

    1 more example

    Improvising freely, he entered the stage with a karaoke set and introduced himself as a 'Bohemian street performer', before launching into a series of clubstyle gags and one-liners, promising 'a bit of blue for the Dads'[…]

    2009 February 25, S. Purcell, Popular Shakespeare: Simulation and Subversion on the Modern Stage, Springer, →ISBN, page 51

present singular third person blues · participle present blueing · participle present bluing · participle past blued · past blued · alternative obsolete blew · alternative obsolete blewe

1. ergativeTo make or become blue; to turn blue.

   The dawn is wanly blueing.

   1921, D[avid] H[erbert] Lawrence, “The Sea”, in Sea and Sardinia, New York, N.Y.: Thomas Seltzer, →OCLC, page 48

   2 more examples

   It blows, it snows, And blues your nose, My toes are all frost bitten The weather would Quite starve the crows, Or freeze the part you sit on.

   1900 July 8, The Truth, Sydney, page 1, column 6

   Michael: As a member of the Blue Man Group?[…] Tobias: Oh, no, no, I’m not in the group yet. No, I’m afraid I just blue myself.

   2004 November 7, Mitchell Hurwitz and Richard Rosenstock, “The One Where Michael Leaves”, in Arrested Development, season 2, episode 1, spoken by Tobias Fünke (David Cross)

   Synonyms: bluen

2. transitiveengineeringTo treat the surface of steel so that it is passivated chemically and becomes more resistant to rust.
3. transitivelaundryTo brighten by treating with blue (laundry aid).
4. AustraliaintransitiveslangTo fight, brawl, or argue.

   It was years since Ken had flogged her up, but blueing with him still made her ache.

   2018, Melissa Lucashenko, Too Much Lip, University of Queensland Press, published 2023, page 146

present singular third person blues · participle present blueing · participle present bluing · participle past blued · past blued · alternative obsolete blew · alternative obsolete blewe

1. datedslangtransitiveTo spend (money) extravagantly; to blow.

   They was willing to blue the lot and have nothing left when they got home except debts on the never-never.

   1974, GB Edwards, The Book of Ebenezer Le Page, New York, published 2007, page 311

   1 more example

   So far as I can see, there’s nothing to prevent you from drawing a cheque for fifty thousand and blueing the lot.

   1935, Dorothy L. Sayers, Gaudy Night

1. A surname from German. An anglicization of German Blau.
2. rareA female given name from English, typically used in conjoined names like Bonnie Blue or Blue Bell.
3. A male nickname, occasionally used as a formal given name. (Australia) Nickname for a person with ginger hair.

plural Blues

1. A letterman at Oxford or Cambridge.
2. historicalA member of the Royal Horse Guards (which merged with the 1st Dragoons in 1969)

   Have you heard any news / Of that chap in the Blues / Was it Prosser, or Pyecroft, or Pimm?

   1944, Noël Coward, I Wonder What Happened to Him?, first verse

3. Synonym of British Blue (“a breed of cat”).

   This Blue shows the remarkable, sleek bodyline of the breed.

   2001, Alan Edwards, The New Guide to Cat Breeds, page 89

   Synonyms: British Blue