bloom
Language: English
Part of speech: noun
Pronunciation: ipa: /bluːm/
homophone: Bloom
rhymes: -uːm
Forms: form: blooms
Etymology: From Middle English blome, from Old Norse blóm, from Proto-Germanic *blōmô (“flower”). Doublet of bloom (“spongy mass of metal”); see there for more.
Senses: examples: text: the rich blooms and enamelled vegetation of the tropics
ref: 1843, William H[ickling] Prescott, History of the Conquest of Mexico, […], volume (please specify |volume=I to III), New York, N.Y.: Harper and Brothers, […], →OCLC:
glosses: A blossom; the flower of a plant; an expanded bud.
glosses: Flowers.
examples: text: The cherry trees are in bloom.
text: sight of vernal bloom
ref: 1667, John Milton, “Book III”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker […]; [a]nd by Robert Boulter […]; [a]nd Matthias Walker, […], →OCLC; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: […], London: Basil Montagu Pickering […], 1873, →OCLC:
text: O, not for thee the glow, the bloom,
⁠Who changest not in any gale,
⁠Nor branding summer suns avail
To touch thy thousand years of gloom: […]
ref: 1850, [Alfred, Lord Tennyson], “Canto II”, in In Memoriam, London: Edward Moxon, […], →OCLC:
glosses: The opening of flowers in general; the state of blossoming or of having the flowers open.
examples: text: the bloom of youth
text: every successive mother had transmitted to her child a fainter bloom, a more delicate and briefer beauty.
ref: 1850, Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter, a Romance, Boston, Mass.: Ticknor, Reed, and Fields, →OCLC:
text: We can have some more / Nature is a whore / Bruises on the fruit / Tender age in bloom
ref: 1992, “In Bloom”, in Kurt Cobain (lyrics), Nevermind, performed by Nirvana:
glosses: A state or time of beauty, freshness, and vigor; an opening to higher perfection, analogous to that of buds into blossoms.
glosses: Rosy colour; the flush or glow on a person's cheek.
examples: text: The bloom on blueberries is the dusty powder that protects them from the Sun; it does not rinse off.
ref: 2010, Donna Pliner Rodnitzky, Low-Carb Smoothies:
glosses: The delicate, powdery coating upon certain growing or newly-gathered fruits or leaves, as on grapes, plums, etc.
examples: text: a new, fresh, brilliant world, with all the bloom upon it
ref: 1847 January – 1848 July, William Makepeace Thackeray, chapter 2, in Vanity Fair […], London: Bradbury and Evans […], published 1848, →OCLC:
glosses: Anything giving an appearance of attractive freshness.
examples: text: Where upwellings or other sources of nutrients allow Ehux to abound, it can proliferate, as blooms, to the point that the ocean turns milky.
ref: 2018, Tim Flannery, Europe: A Natural History, page 28:
glosses: An algal bloom.
glosses: The clouded appearance which varnish sometimes takes upon the surface of a picture.
glosses: A yellowish deposit or powdery coating which appears on well-tanned leather.
examples: text: the rose-red cobalt bloom
topics: chemistry
geography
geology
mineralogy
natural-sciences
physical-sciences
glosses: A bright-hued variety of some minerals.
topics: cooking
food
lifestyle
glosses: A white area of cocoa butter that forms on the surface of chocolate when warmed and cooled.
glosses: A natural protective coating on an eggshell.
topics: broadcasting
media
television
glosses: An undesirable halo effect that may occur when a very bright region is displayed next to a very dark region of the screen.
examples: text: Bloom does add a skill element, burst firing the weapon instead of holding the trigger down, but it's questionable if adding a skill element like that is the actual intent of bloom, because that’s a pretty lame and linear skill element to add, requiring people to tap the button instead of hold it down.
ref: 2018 February 21, “Bullet Bloom: An FPS Tragedy”, in CritPoints:
topics: video-games
glosses: The increase in bullet spread over time as a gun's trigger is kept held.
topics: lifestyle
glosses: A fan of Filipino girl group BINI.
examples: text: Thousands of the little red and black insects took flight at the same time, and the bloom stretched for 10 miles before they landed.
ref: 2019 June 6, “A gaggle, a confusion and a conspiracy - bizarre animal collective group names”, in BBC:
glosses: A group of ladybugs.
Synonyms: sense: flower of a plant
word: blossom
sense: flower of a plant
word: flower
sense: opening of flowers
word: blossom
sense: opening of flowers
word: flower
sense: anything giving an appearance of attractive freshness
word: flush
sense: anything giving an appearance of attractive freshness
word: glow
Derived terms: abloom
algal bloom
Bloomfield
bloom is off the peach
bloom is off the rose
bloomless
bloomly
bloomsome
bloom tea
bloomy
checkerbloom
choking bloom
embloom
in bloom
iron bloom
maybloom
nanobloom
phytoplankton bloom
sunbloom
superbloom
violet bloom
winterbloom
zinc bloom