bluebottle
Language: English
Part of speech: noun
Forms: form: bluebottles
form: blue-bottle
Etymology: From blue + bottle, after the resemblance to shiny colored-glass bottles. In sense 3 (“cornflower”), via Middle English blewbothel. Sense 6 (“police officer”) is in reference to the colour of the uniform.
Senses: examples: text: The incredibly long body as well as the extended wings were of a gleaming purplish-gray colour: I can only liken it to that of a meat fly or common "bluebottle".
ref: 1930, Sax Rohmer, The Day the World Ended, published 1969, page i. 16:
glosses: Any of various blowflies of the genus Calliphora that have an iridescent metallic-blue body and make a loud buzzing noise when flying.
glosses: A marine jellyfish of the genus Physalia, which includes Physalia physalis, the Portuguese man-of-war, and Physalia utriculus, the Pacific man-of-war; a man-of-war.
glosses: A cornflower, a plant that grows in grain fields, Centaurea cyanus, with blue flowers resembling bottles.
glosses: A blue ant, Diamma bicolor, a parasitic wasp native to Australia.
glosses: Any of various large papilionid butterflies of the genus Graphium, also called triangles, etc.
examples: text: I will have you as soundly swing’d for this, you bluebottle rogue!
ref: c. 1596–1599 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Second Part of Henry the Fourth, […]. Epilogue.”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act V, scene vi]:
text: […] comic writers […] have never failed to make capital out of the New Police, Peel's Raw-Lobsters, Peelers, Blue Bottles, &c., &c.
ref: 1878, Charles Hindley, The life and times of James Catnach, page 206:
text: COOMBE: He got the clinch only last week — eighteen months. You see it's no good having anybody here as ain't got a^([sic]) unblemished character. We don't want to have the bluebottles come sniffing round here, do we?
ref: 1882, Henry Herman, Henry Arthur Jones, The Silver King:
glosses: A police officer.
examples: text: To-morrow there is a party of purple at the “blue” Miss Berry’s. Shall I go? um! — I don’t much affect your blue-bottles ; — but one ought to be civil.
ref: 1813, Lord G. G. Byron, edited by Rowland E. Prothero, The Works Of Lord Byron Letters And Journals Vol II, page 358:
text: There appears to be a growing disposition on the part of the literary and dramatic blue-bottles of this city to get up a national drama and to manufacture a new race of actors.
ref: 1846 February 22, “Letter from Spranger Barry, Esq.”, in Sunday Dispatch (New York), page 2, Column 6:
text: ..and did not the rich dowager-countess Bluebottle marry her footman, who forthwith became a lord and was made a privy counsellor.
ref: 1853 January 29, Geo. F. Pardon, “Common People”, in The Working Man’s Friend, page 282:
text: There are many literary bluebottles — those who feed upon the remains of literature and buzz about the heads of those who are yet alive in this domain.
ref: 1922 December, Simon Pure, “The Londoner”, in The Bookman:
glosses: A bluestocking.
Hypernyms: blowfly
bottlefly
Coordinate terms: greenbottle
green-bottle fly
Derived terms: blue-bottle fly