quword 趣词
Word Origins Dictionary
- bludge (v.)



[bludge 词源字典] - "shirk responsibility," 1919, Australian and New Zealand slang, earlier "be a prostitute's pimp," from bludger "pimp."[bludge etymology, bludge origin, 英语词源]
- bludgeon (v.)




- 1802, from earlier noun bludgeon "short club" (1730), which is of unknown origin. Related: Bludgeoned; bludgeoning.
- bludgeon (n.)




- "short club," 1730, of unknown origin.
- bludger (n.)




- "prostitute's pimp," 1856, short for bludgeoner, agent noun from bludgeon (v.).
- blue (1)




- c. 1300, bleu, blwe, etc., from Old French blo "pale, pallid, wan, light-colored; blond; discolored; blue, blue-gray," from Frankish *blao or some other Germanic source, from Proto-Germanic *blæwaz (cognates: Old English blaw, Old Saxon and Old High German blao, Danish blaa, Swedish blå, Old Frisian blau, Middle Dutch bla, Dutch blauw, German blau "blue"), from PIE *bhle-was "light-colored, blue, blond, yellow," from PIE root bhel- (1) "to shine, flash" (see bleach (v.)).
The same PIE root yielded Latin flavus "yellow," Old Spanish blavo "yellowish-gray," Greek phalos "white," Welsh blawr "gray," Old Norse bla "livid" (the meaning in black and blue), showing the usual slippery definition of color words in Indo-European The present spelling is since 16c., from French influence (Modern French bleu).
The exact color to which the Gmc. term applies varies in the older dialects; M.H.G. bla is also 'yellow,' whereas the Scandinavian words may refer esp. to a deep, swarthy black, e.g. O.N. blamaðr, N.Icel. blamaður 'Negro' [Buck]
Few words enter more largely into the composition of slang, and colloquialisms bordering on slang, than does the word BLUE. Expressive alike of the utmost contempt, as of all that men hold dearest and love best, its manifold combinations, in ever varying shades of meaning, greet the philologist at every turn. [John S. Farmer, "Slang and Its Analogues Past and Present," 1890, p.252]
The color of constancy since Chaucer at least, but apparently for no deeper reason than the rhyme in true blue (c. 1500). From early times blue was the distinctive color of the dress of servants, which may be the reason police uniforms are blue, a tradition Farmer dates to Elizabethan times. For blue ribbon see cordon bleu under cordon. Blue whale attested from 1851, so called for its color. The flower name blue bell is recorded by 1570s. Blue streak, of something resembling a bolt of lightning (for quickness, intensity, etc.) is from 1830, U.S. Western slang.
Many Indo-European languages seem to have had a word to describe the color of the sea, encompasing blue and green and gray; such as Irish glass (see Chloe); Old English hæwen "blue, gray," related to har (see hoar); Serbo-Croatian sinji "gray-blue, sea-green;" Lithuanian šyvas, Russian sivyj "gray." - blue (2)




- "lewd, indecent" recorded from 1840 (in form blueness, in an essay of Carlyle's); the sense connection is unclear, and is opposite to that in blue laws (q.v.). John Mactaggart's "Scottish Gallovidian Encyclopedia" (1824) containing odd words he had learned while growing up in Galloway and elsewhere in Scotland, has an entry for Thread o'Blue, "any little smutty touch in song-singing, chatting, or piece of writing." Farmer ["Slang and Its Analogues Past and Present," 1890] offers the theory that this meaning derives from the blue dress uniforms issued to harlots in houses of correction, but he writes that the earlier slang authority John Camden Hotten "suggests it as coming from the French Bibliothèque Bleu, a series of books of very questionable character," and adds, from Hotten, that, "Books or conversation of an entirely opposite nature are said to be Brown or Quakerish, i.e., serious, grave, decent."
- blue (v.)




- "to make blue," c. 1600, from blue (1).
- blue blood (adj.)




- 1809 in reference to the blood that flows in the veins of the old and aristocratic families of Spain, translating Spanish sangre azul, claimed by certain families of Castile as uncontaminated by Moorish or Jewish admixture; the term is probably from the notion of the visible veins of people of fair complexion. In reference to English families by 1827. As a noun, "member of an old and aristocratic family," by 1877.
- blue chip (adj.)




- also blue-chip, in reference to the high-value poker counter, from 1904 in the figurative sense of "valuable;" stock exchange sense, in reference to "shares considered a reliable investment," is first recorded 1929; especially of stocks that saw spectacular rises in value in the four years or so before the Wall Street crash of that year.
- blue collar (adj.)




- also blue-collar, 1949, from blue (1) + collar (n.). From the common color of men's work shirts.
- blue jeans




- from 1843 as a type of fabric; see jean. As short for blue jeans trousers, from 1878.
- blue laws




- 1781, severe Puritanical code said to have been enacted 18c. in New Haven, Connecticut; of uncertain origin, perhaps from one of the ground senses behind blues, or from notion of coldness. Or perhaps connected to bluestocking in the sense of "puritanically plain or mean" (see bluestocking, which is a different application of the same term; the parliament of 1653 was derisively called the bluestocking parliament). The common explanation that they were written on blue paper is not considered valid; pale blue paper was used for many old U.S. legal documents and there would have been nothing notable about its use in this case.
- blue moon (n.)




- 1821 as a specific term in the sense "very rarely," perhaps suggesting something that, in fact, never happens (compare at the Greek calends, and the native in the reign of Queen Dick and Saint Geoffrey's Day "Never, there being no saint of that name," reported in Grose (1788)); suggested earliest in this couplet from 1528:
Yf they say the mone is blewe,
We must beleve that it is true.
Though this might refer to calendrical calculations by the Church. Thus the general "rareness" sense of the term is difficult to disentangle from the specific calendrical one (commonly misinterpreted as "second full moon in a calendar month," but actually a quarterly calculation). In either case, the sense of blue here is obscure. Literal blue moons do sometimes occur under extreme atmospheric conditions. - blueberry (n.)




- c. 1775, from blue (1) + berry.
- bluebird (n.)




- also blue-bird, North American warbler-like bird, 1680s, from blue (1) in reference to its plumage + bird (n.1). Figurative use in bluebird of happiness is from 1909 play romance "l'Oiseau bleu," literally "The Blue Bird," by Belgian dramatist and poet Maurice Maeterlinck (1862-1949).
- bluegrass (n.)




- also blue-grass, music style, 1958, in reference to the Blue Grass Boys, country music band 1940s-'50s, from the "blue" grass (Poa pratensis) characteristic of Kentucky, the grass so called from 1751. Kentucky has been called the Bluegrass State since at least 1872; see blue (n.) + grass.
- blueing (n.)




- "substance which makes (something) blue," 1660s, verbal noun from blue (v.).
- blueprint (n.)




- also blue-print, 1882, from blue (1) + print (n.). The process uses blue on white, or white on blue. Figurative sense of "detailed plan" is attested from 1926. As a verb by 1939.
- blues (n.)




- as a music form featuring flatted thirds and sevenths, possibly c. 1895 (though officially 1912, in W.C. Handy's "Memphis Blues"); meaning "depression, low spirits" goes back to 1741, from adjectival blue "low-spirited," late 14c.
- bluestocking (n.)




- also blue-stocking, 1790, derisive word for a woman considered too learned, traces to a London literary salon founded c. 1750 by Elizabeth Montagu on the Parisian model, featuring intellectual discussion instead of card games, and in place of ostentatious evening attire, simple dress, including Benjamin Stillingfleet's blue-gray tradesman's hose which he wore in place of gentleman's black silk, hence the term, first applied in derision to the whole set by Admiral Boscawen. None of the ladies wore blue stockings. Borrowed by the neighbors in loan-translations, such as French bas-bleu, Dutch blauwkous, German Blaustrumpf.