blue
Language: English
Part of speech: adj
Pronunciation: enpr: blo͞o
ipa: /bluː/
note: Wales, Ottawa Valley
ipa: /blɪʊ̯/
enpr: blyo͞o
ipa: /bljuː/
homophone: blew
rhymes: -uː
Forms: form: bluer
form: more blue
form: bluest
form: most blue
form: blew
form: blewe
Etymology: From Middle English blewe, from Anglo-Norman blew (“blue”), from Middle French bleu, from Old French blöe, bleve, blef (“blue”), from Frankish *blāu (“blue”) (perhaps through a Late Latin blāvus, blāvius (“blue”) attested from Isidore of Seville), from Proto-Germanic *blēwaz (“blue, dark blue”), from Proto-Indo-European *bʰlēw- (“yellow, blond, grey”).
Cognate with dialectal English blow (“blue”), Scots blue, blew (“blue”), North Frisian bla, blö (“blue”), Saterland Frisian blau (“blue”), Dutch blauw (“blue”), German blau (“blue”), Danish, Norwegian and Swedish blå (“blue”), Icelandic blár (“blue”), Latin flāvus (“yellow”), French bleu (“blue”), Middle Irish blá (“yellow”). Doublet of blow.
Possibly related also to English blee (“colour”), from Old English blēo (“colour”); but direct derivatives of Proto-Germanic *blēwaz (“blue, dark blue”) in Old English include: Old English blāw and blēo (“blue”), Old English blǣwen (“bluish, light-blue”), blǣhǣwen (“blue-coloured, bluish, violet or purple colour”, literally “blue-hued”). There seems to be a parallel connection in Germanic between words for blue and colour, dually exemplified by Proto-West Germanic *blīu (“colour, blee”) and *blāu (“blue”); and Proto-Germanic *hiwją (“colour, hue”) and *hēwijaz (“blue, purple”).
The sense "obscene, pornographic" is apparently from the colour; various theories exist as to how it arose, including that it is from the colour of the envelopes used to contain missives of the censors and managers to vaudevillian performers on objectionable material from their acts that needed to be excised.
Senses: examples: text: the deep blue sea
text: Why is the sky blue?
text: He was wearing a blue t-shirt.
text: 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
ref: 1922 February, James Joyce, “[Episode 13]”, in Ulysses, Paris: Shakespeare and Company, […], →OCLC:
glosses: Of a blue hue.
examples: text: “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.[…]”
ref: 1907 August, Robert W[illiam] Chambers, chapter IX, in The Younger Set, New York, N.Y.: D. Appleton & Company, →OCLC:
text: "Will you play some of the 'Garden' now?" she asked. "I think I should like it. I'm just the least bit blue."
ref: 1904, Guy Wetmore Carryl, The Transgression of Andrew Vane, Henry Holt and Company, page 140:
text: But I'm bluer than blue / Sadder than sad.
ref: 1978, Michael Johnson, Bluer Than Blue:
synonyms: word: miserable
word: unhappy
word: atrabiliary
word: atrabilious
word: blitheless
word: dispirited
word: blue
word: bummed out
word: chapfallen
word: cheerless
word: chopfallen
word: crestfallen
word: cut up
word: damp
word: dejected
word: depressed
word: despondent
word: disgruntled
word: disconsolate
word: disheartened
word: dismal
word: doleful
word: dolesome
word: down
word: down in the dumps
word: down in the mouth
word: downcast
word: downhearted
word: downsome
word: dull
word: elegiac
word: elegious
word: forlorn
word: gloomy
word: glum
word: grief-stricken
word: grieving
word: heavy-hearted
word: heartsore
word: heartsick
word: inconsolable
word: infelicitous
word: jawfallen
word: joyless
word: lachrymose
word: lamentful
word: low
word: low-spirited
word: lugubrious
word: lumpish
word: melancholic
word: melancholy
word: miserable
word: moody
word: mopey
word: morose
word: mournful
word: passionate
word: plaintive
word: querulous
word: sad
word: saddened
word: saturnine
word: shattered
word: solemn
word: sombre
word: sorrowful
word: sorrow-ridden
word: sorrowsome
word: spiritless
word: sullen
word: threnetic
word: threnetical
word: triste
word: tristful
word: uncheerful
word: uncheery
word: unconsolable
word: unhappy
word: unlively
word: wistful
word: woe
word: woebegone
word: woeful
word: wretched
glosses: Depressed, melancholic, sad.
examples: text: My hands were blue with cold.
text: The divers got them out of the car just in time – they were starting to turn blue.
glosses: Having a bluish or purplish shade to the skin due to a lack of oxygen to the normally deep-red red blood cells; cyanotic.
examples: text: The candle burns blue.
glosses: Pale, without redness or glare.
raw_tags: of a flame
examples: text: I live in a blue constituency.  Congress turned blue in the mid-term elections.
topics: government
politics
glosses: Supportive of, run by (a member of), pertaining to, or dominated by a political party represented by the colour blue.
Supportive of, run by (a member of), pertaining to, or dominated by the Democratic Party.
examples: text: Illawarra turns blue in Liberal washout
topics: government
politics
glosses: Supportive of, run by (a member of), pertaining to, or dominated by a political party represented by the colour blue.
Supportive of or related to the Liberal Party.
topics: government
politics
glosses: Supportive of, run by (a member of), pertaining to, or dominated by a political party represented by the colour blue.
Supportive of or related to the Conservative Party.
topics: astronomy
natural-sciences
glosses: Of, dominated by, or shifted toward the higher-frequency, or "bluer", end of the electromagnetic spectrum.
topics: natural-sciences
physical-sciences
physics
glosses: Having a colour charge of blue.
synonyms: word: mooing
glosses: Extra rare; left very raw and cold.
raw_tags: of steak
glosses: Having a coat of fur of a slaty gray shade.
raw_tags: of a dog or cat
examples: text: blue and sour religionists;  blue laws
glosses: Severe or overly strict in morals; gloomy.
examples: text: 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.
ref: 1847 January – 1848 July, William Makepeace Thackeray, chapter 61, in Vanity Fair […], London: Bradbury and Evans […], published 1848, →OCLC:
glosses: Literary; scholarly; bluestockinged.
raw_tags: of women
examples: text: His material is too blue for prime time.
text: The air was blue with oaths.
text: a blue movie
glosses: Risqué; obscene; profane; pornographic.
examples: text: My wine I drank and oft got blue / On brandy, gin and whisky too— / Until my reputation gay, / Along with care, was cast away —
ref: 1847, Jacob Carter, My Drunken Life, in Fifteen Chapters, from 1825 to 1847, page 76:
glosses: Drunk.
Synonyms: topics: colour
color
word: azure
topics: colour
color
word: cerulean
topics: colour
color
word: navy
topics: colour
color
word: sapphire
sense: pornographic
word: adult
word: X-rated
word: pornographic