Definition of "blue"

blue¹

/bluː/

adjective
comparative bluer or more blue, superlative bluest or most blue
1. Having blue as its color.
2. (informal) Depressed, melancholic, sad.
  Quotations
  “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. […]”
  1907 August, Robert W[illiam] Chambers, chapter IX, in The Younger Set, New York, N.Y.: D. Appleton & Company
  "Will you play some of the 'Garden' now?" she asked. "I think I should like it. I'm just the least bit blue."
  1904, Guy Wetmore Carryl, The Transgression of Andrew Vane, Henry Holt and Company, page 140
  But I'm bluer than blue / Sadder than sad.
  1978, Michael Johnson, Bluer Than Blue
3. Having a bluish or purplish shade of the skin due to a lack of oxygen to the normally deep red blood cells.
4. Pale, without redness or glare; said of a flame.
5. (politics) Supportive of, run by (a member of), pertaining to, or dominated by a political party represented by the colour blue.
  1. (US politics) Supportive of, run by (a member of), pertaining to, or dominated by the Democratic Party.
  2. (Australian politics) Supportive of or related to the Liberal Party.
  3. (UK politics) Supportive of or related to the Conservative Party.
6. (astronomy) Of the higher-frequency region of the part of the electromagnetic spectrum which is relevant in the specific observation.
7. (of steak) Extra rare; left very raw and cold.
8. (of a dog or cat) Having a coat of fur of a slaty gray shade.
9. (archaic) Severe or overly strict in morals; gloomy.
10. (archaic, of women) literary; bluestockinged.
  Quotations
  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.
  1847 January – 1848 July, William Makepeace Thackeray, chapter 61, in Vanity Fair […], London: Bradbury and Evans […], published 1848
11. (particle physics) Having a color charge of blue.
12. (informal) Risqué; obscene; profane; pornographic.
13. (slang, dated) Drunk.
  Quotations
  My wine I drank and oft got blue / On brandy, gin and whisky too— / Until my reputation gay, / Along with care, was cast away —
  1847, Jacob Carter, My Drunken Life, in Fifteen Chapters, from 1825 to 1847, page 76
noun
countable and uncountable, plural blues
1. (countable and uncountable) The colour of the clear sky or the deep sea, between green and purple in the visible spectrum, and one of the primary additive colours for transmitted light; the colour obtained by subtracting red and green from white light using magenta and cyan filters; or any colour resembling this.
  Quotations
  Lady Penrhyn was quite handsome enough to have spared one ingredient in her cup of fascination, but, unfortunately, having been married in her teens, she expected to live in them, and, never being reminded by the trials to which her sex is subject, of the flight of years, and the inroads of suffering, expected time to stand still, and the first bloom of existence (the blue on the plum) to remain as stationary as her own taste, for the pleasures of flirtation.
  1838 (date written), L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], chapter XVI, in Lady Anne Granard; or, Keeping up Appearances. […], volume I, London: Henry Colburn, […], published 1842, page 204
  She watches the yachts in the creamy evening blues.
  2004, David Mitchell, Cloud Atlas, London: Hodder and Stoughton
2. Anything coloured blue, especially to distinguish it from similar objects differing only in color.
3. A blue dye or pigment.
4. (uncountable) Blue clothing.
  1. (in the plural) A blue uniform. See blues.
  2. (in the plural) a nickname for the team as a whole. See also blues.
  3. (baseball, slang) An umpire, in reference to the typical dark blue color of the umpire's uniform. Sometimes perceived by umpires as derogatory when used by players or coaches while disputing a call.
  4. Sporting colours awarded by a university or other institution for sporting achievement, such as representing one's university, especially and originally at Oxford and Cambridge Universities in England. See also full blue, half blue.
  5. A person who has received such sporting colours.
  6. (slang) A member of law enforcement.
    Quotations
    He dialed Kathy to be sure she was okay and see if the blues arrived. She was crying when she picked up the phone.“Kathy, honey, I'm here. It'll be okay. Are the police there?”
    2022, Jim Malloy, Die, Mother Goose, Die
  7. (now historical) A bluestocking.
5. The sky, literally or figuratively.
6. The ocean; deep waters.
7. The far distance; a remote or distant place.
  Quotations
  The problem with buffalo as well as most African antelopes as a steady diet is that they have very little marbling or body fat and, after six months out in the blue, one dreams at night of a T-bone steak sizzling in great globules of yellow fat.
  1978, Peter Hathaway Capstick, Death in the Long Grass
  2000, Thomas C. Barger, Timothy J. Barger, Out in the Blue: Letters from Arabia, 1937 to 1940 : a Young American Geologist Explores the Deserts of Early Saudi Arabia
8. A dog or cat with a slaty gray coat.
  Quotations
  On average, blues and other dilutes have weaker coats and skin problems seem more prevalent in the dilutes.
  2000, Joe Stahlkuppe, American Pit Bull Terrier Handbook, page 131
9. (snooker) One of the colour balls used in snooker, with a value of five points.
10. (entomology) Any of the butterflies of the subfamily Polyommatinae in the family Lycaenidae, most of which have blue on their wings.
11. A bluefish.
  Quotations
  Blues are about as vicious a fish as you'll find on the Atlantic seaboard — they will continue to slash through schools of bait even after they have eaten so much that they're constantly regurgitating shredded baitfish.
  2012, Lenny Rudow, Rudow's Guide to Fishing the Mid Atlantic, page 102
12. (Australia, colloquial) An argument or brawl.
  Quotations
  "I had a blue with Dad," said Fay. "He wanted to drive us, I wanted to walk."
  2004, Tim Winton, The Turning (short stories), Picador UK Paperback edition 2006. Short story, 'Small Mercies' (at p.91)
  If they had a blue between themselves, they kept it there, it never flowed out onto the streets to innocent people — like a lot of things that have been happenin′ on the streets today.
  2008, Cheryl Jorgensen, The Taint, page 135
  On another occasion, there was a blue between Henry Daniels and Merv Wilson down at the pig sale. I don′t know what it was about, it only lasted a minute or so, but they shook hands when it was over and that was the end of it.
  2009, John Gilfoyle, Remember Cannon Hill, page 102
  I was a bit disappointed. Was that it? No abuse like Lord Byron had endured? Not that I was wishing that upon myself. It was just that a blue between my parents, albeit a raging, foul, bile-spitting hate fest, was not exactly Charles Dickens.
  2011, Julietta Jameson, Me, Myself and Lord Byron, unnumbered page
13. A liquid with an intense blue colour, added to a laundry wash to prevent yellowing of white clothes.
  Quotations
  It was applied methodically, carefully, resolutely, as in the fashion of a Satin-bird with charcoal, desiccated wood or blue from laundry-bags.
  1948, Alec H. Chisholm, Bird Wonders of Australia, page 13
14. Any of several processes to protect metal against rust.
15. (Britain) A type of firecracker.
  Quotations
  Lord Lyttelton's Life by Dr Johnson […] which a whole tribe of Blues, with Mrs Montagu at their Head, have Vowed to execrate and revenge […]
  1781, Frances Burney, Journals & Letters, Penguin, published 2001, page 172
16. (particle physics) One of the three color charges for quarks.
17. (UK) A member or supporter of the Conservative Party.
verb
third-person singular simple present blues, present participle blueing or bluing, simple past and past participle blued
1. (ergative) To make or become blue; to turn blue.
  Quotations
  It blows, it snows,And blues your nose,My toes are all frost bittenThe weather wouldQuite starve the crows,Or freeze the part you sit on.
  1900 July 8, The Truth, Sydney, page 1, column 6
  The dawn is wanly blueing.
  1921, D[avid] H[erbert] Lawrence, “The Sea”, in Sea and Sardinia, New York, N.Y.: Thomas Seltzer, page 48
2. (transitive, metallurgy) To treat the surface of steel so that it is passivated chemically and becomes more resistant to rust.
3. (transitive, laundry) To brighten by treating with blue (laundry aid).
4. (intransitive, Australia, slang) To fight, brawl, or argue.

blue²

/bluː/

verb
third-person singular simple present blues, present participle blueing or bluing, simple past and past participle blued
1. (transitive, slang, dated) To spend (money) extravagantly; to blow.
  Quotations
  They was willing to blue the lot and have nothing left when they got home except debts on the never-never.
  1974, GB Edwards, The Book of Ebenezer Le Page, New York, published 2007, page 311

Definition of "blue"

blue1

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blue2

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blue¹

blue²