blue

• blew (obsolete)
• blewe (obsolete)

• enPR: blo͞o, IPA^(key): /bluː/, /blɪʊ̯/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /blu/
• (obsolete) enPR: blyo͞o, IPA^(key): /bljuː/

• Audio (US)

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• Audio (UK)

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• Audio (AU)

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• Rhymes: -uː
• Homophone: blew

From Middle English blewe, partially from Old English *blǣw ("blue"; found in derivative blǣwen (“bluish”)); and partially from Anglo-Norman blew, blef (“blue”), from Old Frankish *blāw, *blāo (“blue”) (perhaps through a Medieval Latin blāvus, blāvius (“blue”)); both from Proto-Germanic *blēwaz (“blue, dark blue”), from Proto-Indo-European *bʰlēw- (“yellow, blond, grey”). Cognate with dialectal English blow (“blue”), Scots blue, blew (“blue”), North Frisian bla, blö (“blue”), Saterland Frisian blau (“blue”), Dutch blauw (“blue”), German blau (“blue”), Danish, Norwegian and Swedish blå (“blue”), Icelandic blár (“blue”), Latin flāvus (“yellow”), Middle Irish blá (“yellow”), Lithuanian blãvas (“blue”). Doublet of blae.

blue (comparative bluer, superlative bluest)

1. Of the colour blue.

   the deep blue sea

2. (informal) Depressed, melancholic, sad.
   • 1907, Robert William Chambers, chapter IX, in The Younger Set, New York, N.Y.: D. Appleton & Company, OCLC 24962326:

     “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. […]”

   • 1904, Guy Wetmore Carryl, The Transgression of Andrew Vane, Henry Holt and Company, page 140:

     "Will you play some of the 'Garden' now?" she asked. "I think I should like it. I'm just the least bit blue."

3. Pale, without redness or glare; said of a flame.

   The candle burns blue.

4. (politics) Supportive of, run by (a member of), pertaining to, or dominated by a political party represented by the colour blue.
   1. (politics, in particular, in the US) Supportive of, run by (a member of), pertaining to, or dominated by the Democratic Party. [after 2000]

      I live in a blue constituency.  Congress turned blue in the mid-term elections.

   2. (Australia, politics) Supportive of or related to the Liberal Party.

      Illawarra turns blue in Liberal washout

5. (astronomy) Of the higher-frequency region of the part of the electromagnetic spectrum which is relevant in the specific observation.
6. (of steak) Extra rare; left very raw and cold.
7. (of a dog or cat) Having a coat of fur of a slaty gray shade.
8. (archaic) Severe or overly strict in morals; gloomy.

   blue and sour religionists;  blue laws

9. (archaic, of women) literary; bluestockinged.
   • (Can we date this quote?) William Makepeace Thackeray

     The ladies were very blue and well informed.

10. (particle physics) Having a color charge of blue.
11. (entertainment) Risque or obscene

    His material is too blue for prime-time

• (having blue as its colour): nonblue, unblue
• (having blue as its colour charge): antiblue

• Tok Pisin: blu
• → Fiji Hindi: bulu
• → Shona: bhuluu
• → Somali: buluug
• → Swahili: bluu, buluu

blue (countable and uncountable, plural blues)

1. (countable and uncountable) The colour of the clear sky or the deep sea, between green and violet 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.

   blue colour:  

   • 2004, David Mitchell, Cloud Atlas

     She watches the yachts in the creamy evening blues.

2. A blue dye or pigment.
3. Any of several processes to protect metal against rust.
4. Blue clothing

   The boys in blue marched to the pipers.

5. (in the plural) A blue uniform. See blues.
6. (slang) A member of law enforcement
7. The sky, literally or figuratively.

   The ball came out of the blue and cracked his windshield.

   His request for leave came out of the blue.

8. The ocean; deep waters.
9. Anything blue, especially to distinguish it from similar objects differing only in color.
10. A dog or cat with a slaty gray coat.
    • 2000, Joe Stahlkuppe, American Pit Bull Terrier Handbook (page 131)

      On average, blues and other dilutes have weaker coats and skin problems seem more prevalent in the dilutes.

11. (snooker) One of the colour balls used in snooker, with a value of five points.
12. Any of the butterflies of the subfamily Polyommatinae in the family Lycaenidae, most of which have blue on their wings.
13. A bluefish.
    • 2012, Lenny Rudow, Rudow's Guide to Fishing the Mid Atlantic (page 102)

      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.

14. (Australia, colloquial) An argument.
    • 2008, Cheryl Jorgensen, The Taint, page 135,

      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.

    • 2009, John Gilfoyle, Remember Cannon Hill, page 102,

      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.

    • 2011, Julietta Jameson, Me, Myself and Lord Byron, unnumbered page,

      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.

15. A liquid with an intense blue colour, added to a laundry wash to prevent yellowing of white clothes.
16. (Britain) A type of firecracker.
17. (archaic) A pedantic woman; a bluestocking.
18. (particle physics) One of the three color charges for quarks.

• Blue (colour) on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

blue (third-person singular simple present blues, present participle blueing or bluing, simple past and past participle blued)

1. (ergative) To make or become blue.
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. (transitive, slang) To spend (money) extravagantly; to blow.
   • 1974, GB Edwards, The Book of Ebenezer Le Page, New York 2007, page 311:

     They was willing to blue the lot and have nothing left when they got home except debts on the never-never.

• (blues) blue; Alice blue, aqua, aquamarine, azure, baby blue, beryl, bice, bice blue, blue green, blue violet, blueberry, cadet blue, Cambridge blue, cerulean, cobalt blue, Copenhagen blue, cornflower, cornflower blue, cyan, Dodger blue, duck-egg blue, eggshell blue, electric-blue, gentian blue, ice blue, lapis lazuli, lovat, mazarine, midnight blue, navy, Nile blue, Oxford blue, peacock blue, petrol blue, powder blue, Prussian blue, robin's-egg blue, royal blue, sapphire, saxe blue, slate blue, sky blue, teal, turquoise, ultramarine, Wedgwood blue, zaffre ^{(Category: en:Blues)}
• bluing (steel) on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• Havasupai
• primary colour
• rainbow
• RGB

From the color of the envelopes used to contain missives of the censors and managers to vaudevillian performers on objectionable material from their acts that needed to be excised. (Can this⁽⁺⁾ etymology be sourced?)

blue (comparative more blue, superlative most blue)

1. (entertainment, informal) Pornographic or profane.

   The air was blue with oaths.

   a blue movie

• Buel, lube

blue

1. bluely
   blue colour:  

• blua (“blue”)
• blui (“to be blue”)
• bluo (“the color blue”)