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Blue   /blu/   Listen
adjective
Blue  adj.  (compar. bluer; superl. bluest)  
1.
Having the color of the clear sky, or a hue resembling it, whether lighter or darker; as, the deep, blue sea; as blue as a sapphire; blue violets. "The blue firmament."
2.
Pale, without redness or glare, said of a flame; hence, of the color of burning brimstone, betokening the presence of ghosts or devils; as, the candle burns blue; the air was blue with oaths.
3.
Low in spirits; melancholy; as, to feel blue.
4.
Suited to produce low spirits; gloomy in prospect; as, thongs looked blue. (Colloq.)
5.
Severe or over strict in morals; gloom; as, blue and sour religionists; suiting one who is over strict in morals; inculcating an impracticable, severe, or gloomy mortality; as, blue laws.
6.
Literary; applied to women; an abbreviation of bluestocking. (Colloq.) "The ladies were very blue and well informed."
Blue asbestus. See Crocidolite.
Blue black, of, or having, a very dark blue color, almost black.
Blue blood. See under Blood.
Blue buck (Zool.), a small South African antelope (Cephalophus pygmaeus); also applied to a larger species (AEgoceras leucophaeus); the blaubok.
Blue cod (Zool.), the buffalo cod.
Blue crab (Zool.), the common edible crab of the Atlantic coast of the United States (Callinectes hastatus).
Blue curls (Bot.), a common plant (Trichostema dichotomum), resembling pennyroyal, and hence called also bastard pennyroyal.
Blue devils, apparitions supposed to be seen by persons suffering with delirium tremens; hence, very low spirits. "Can Gumbo shut the hall door upon blue devils, or lay them all in a red sea of claret?"
Blue gage. See under Gage, a plum.
Blue gum, an Australian myrtaceous tree (Eucalyptus globulus), of the loftiest proportions, now cultivated in tropical and warm temperate regions for its timber, and as a protection against malaria. The essential oil is beginning to be used in medicine. The timber is very useful. See Eucalyptus.
Blue jack, Blue stone, blue vitriol; sulphate of copper.
Blue jacket, a man-of war's man; a sailor wearing a naval uniform.
Blue jaundice. See under Jaundice.
Blue laws, a name first used in the eighteenth century to describe certain supposititious laws of extreme rigor reported to have been enacted in New Haven; hence, any puritanical laws. (U. S.)
Blue light, a composition which burns with a brilliant blue flame; used in pyrotechnics and as a night signal at sea, and in military operations.
Blue mantle (Her.), one of the four pursuivants of the English college of arms; so called from the color of his official robes.
Blue mass, a preparation of mercury from which is formed the blue pill.
Blue mold or Blue mould, the blue fungus (Aspergillus glaucus) which grows on cheese.
Blue Monday,
(a)
a Monday following a Sunday of dissipation, or itself given to dissipation (as the Monday before Lent).
(b)
a Monday considered as depressing because it is a workday in contrast to the relaxation of the weekend.
Blue ointment (Med.), mercurial ointment.
Blue Peter (British Marine), a blue flag with a white square in the center, used as a signal for sailing, to recall boats, etc. It is a corruption of blue repeater, one of the British signal flags.
Blue pill. (Med.)
(a)
A pill of prepared mercury, used as an aperient, etc.
(b)
Blue mass.
Blue ribbon.
(a)
The ribbon worn by members of the order of the Garter; hence, a member of that order.
(b)
Anything the attainment of which is an object of great ambition; a distinction; a prize. "These (scholarships) were the of the college."
(c)
The distinctive badge of certain temperance or total abstinence organizations, as of the Army.
Blue ruin, utter ruin; also, gin. (Eng. Slang)
Blue spar (Min.), azure spar; lazulite. See Lazulite.
Blue thrush (Zool.), a European and Asiatic thrush (Petrocossyphus cyaneas).
Blue verditer. See Verditer.
Blue vitriol (Chem.), sulphate of copper, a violet blue crystallized salt, used in electric batteries, calico printing, etc.
Blue water, the open ocean.
Big Blue, the International Business Machines corporation. (Wall Street slang.) PJC
To look blue, to look disheartened or dejected.
True blue, genuine and thorough; not modified, nor mixed; not spurious; specifically, of uncompromising Presbyterianism, blue being the color adopted by the Covenanters. "For his religion... 'T was Presbyterian, true blue."


noun
Blue  n.  
1.
One of the seven colors into which the rays of light divide themselves, when refracted through a glass prism; the color of the clear sky, or a color resembling that, whether lighter or darker; a pigment having such color. Sometimes, poetically, The sky; as, to fly off into the blue.
2.
A pedantic woman; a bluestocking. (Colloq.)
3.
pl. Low spirits; a fit of despondency; melancholy. (Colloq.)
Berlin blue, Prussian blue.
Mineral blue. See under Mineral.
Prussian blue. See under Prussian.


verb
Blue  v. t.  (past & past part. blued; pres. part. bluing)  To make blue; to dye of a blue color; to make blue by heating, as metals, etc.





Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48


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"Blue" Quotes from Famous Books



... the spectacle our motor halted, and our Captain from Great General Headquarters in his gorgeous blue uniform climbed from the car, discussing with the mother the safety of a baby buggy riding behind a donkey cart, at the same time congratulating the soldier who rescued ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... profligate. The Prince cared no more for Whig principles than he did for his marriage-vows, but affected them as a means of annoying his father, whose Toryism was of proof. He, as a man, toasted the buff and blue, when that meant support of Washington and his associates, for the same reason that, as a boy, he had cheered for Wilkes and Liberty,—because it was the readiest way of annoying his father; but he ever deserted the Whigs when his aid and countenance could ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., February, 1863, No. LXIV. • Various
... Lincoln's first appearance in Sangamon town. To a representative of this MAGAZINE who talked with him recently in Springfield he described Lincoln's looks when he first came to town. "He was a tall, gaunt young man," Mr. Roll said, "dressed in a suit of blue homespun jeans, consisting of a roundabout jacket, waistcoat, and breeches which came to within about four inches of his feet. The latter were encased in raw-hide boots, into the top of which, most of the time, his pantaloons were stuffed. He wore ...
— McClure's Magazine December, 1895 • Edited by Ida M. Tarbell
... its broad tires and wafted away across the sculpted sand. The desert stretched away, silent and empty, to the distant horizon; the groundcar the only humming disturbance of its silence and emptiness. The steel-blue sky shimmered above, a lens capping ...
— Rebels of the Red Planet • Charles Louis Fontenay
... view of the whole building, and showed me that a great canvas pipe rose high above the hotel, and, tracing it upwards, far as the eye could reach, he pointed out a balloon, anchored by cables, so high up as to be dwarfed to a mere speck against the face of the blue sky. He told me that the great pipe was double; that through one division rose the hot, exhausted air of the hotel, and that the powerful draft so created operated machinery which pumped down the pure, sweet air from a higher region, several miles above the earth; and, the current ...
— Caesar's Column • Ignatius Donnelly


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