put to the blush

present singular third person puts to the blush · participle present putting to the blush

1. transitiveTo cause to blush with shame; to put to shame.

   I am glad he is gon, a put me to the blush When a did aske me of ritch Somerfields death.

   1611, Lording Barry, Ram-Alley: or Merrie-Trickes, London: Robert Wilson, act II, scene 1

   4 more examples

   I remember I was once put very much to the Blush, being at a Friend’s House, and by him requir’d to salute the Ladies, I kiss’d the Chamber-Jade in to the bargain, for she was as well dress’d as the best.

   1725, Daniel Defoe, “Every-body’s Business, Is No-body’s Business: or, Private Abuses, Publick Grievances”, in et al., London: T. Warner, page 15

   The tempting prospect of putting to the blush people who stand at the head of affairs—that supreme and piquant enjoyment of those who writhe under the heel of the same—had alone animated them, so far as he could see;

   1886, Thomas Hardy, chapter 42, in The Mayor of Casterbridge

   His politeness to Blanquette would have put to the blush any young man at the Bon Marché or the Louvre.

   1906, William John Locke, chapter 7, in The Belovéd Vagabond, London: John Lane, The Bodley Head, page 91

   Like some misborn, deformed, and monstrous kid Who puts his family to the blush, Whose presence in a cellar must be hid And his existence in a hush!

   1952, “Confession”, in Roy Campbell, transl., Poems of Baudelaire: A translation of Les Fleurs du mal, London: The Harvill Press, page 58