| The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language: Fourth Edition. 2000. |
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| blue |
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| PRONUNCIATION: |  bl |
| NOUN: | 1. The hue of that portion of the visible spectrum lying between green and indigo, evoked in the human observer by radiant energy with wavelengths of approximately 420 to 490 nanometers; any of a group of colors that may vary in lightness and saturation, whose hue is that of a clear daytime sky; one of the additive or light primaries; one of the psychological primary hues. 2a. A pigment or dye imparting this hue. b. Bluing. 3a. An object having this hue. b. Dress or clothing of this hue: The ushers wore blue. 4a. A person who wears a blue uniform. b. blues A dress blue uniform, especially that of the U.S. Army. 5. often Blue a. A member of the Union Army in the Civil War. b. The Union Army. 6. A bluefish. 7. A small blue butterfly of the family Lycaenidae. 8a. The sky. b. The sea. | | ADJECTIVE: | Inflected forms: blu·er, blu·est
1. Of the color blue. 2. Bluish or having parts that are blue or bluish, as the blue spruce and the blue whale. 3. Having a gray or purplish color, as from cold or contusion. 4. Wearing blue. 5a. Gloomy; depressed. See synonyms at depressed. b. Dismal; dreary: a blue day. 6. Puritanical; strict. 7. Aristocratic; patrician. 8. Indecent; risqué: a blue joke; a blue movie. | | TRANSITIVE & INTRANSITIVE VERB: | Inflected forms: blued, blu·ing, blues
To make or become blue. | | IDIOMS: | blue in the face At the point of extreme exasperation: I argued with them until I was blue in the face. into the blue At a far distance; into the unknown: spontaneously take a trip into the blue. out of the blue 1. From an unexpected or unforeseen source: criticism that came out of the blue. 2. At a completely unexpected time: a long-unseen friend who appeared out of the blue. | | ETYMOLOGY: | Middle English blue, bleu, from Old French bleu, of Germanic origin. See bhel-1 in Appendix I. | | OTHER FORMS: | blue ly —ADVERB
blueness —NOUN
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| The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition. Copyright © 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by the Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. |
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