bluer; bluest
1
: of the color whose hue is that of the clear sky : of the color blue (see blue entry 2 sense 1)
a blue jacket
her bright blue eyes
The house is blue with white shutters.
2
a
: bluish
the blue haze of tobacco smoke
b
: discolored by or as if by bruising
blue with cold
c
: bluish gray
a blue cat
3
a
: low in spirits : melancholy
has been feeling blue
b
: marked by low spirits : depressing
a blue funk
things looked blue
4
: wearing blue
the blue team
5
of a woman
: learned, intellectual
… the ladies were very blue and well-informed …—W. M. Thackeray
6
: puritanical
… a blue Sunday city …—James Street
8
music
: of, relating to, or used in blues (see blues sense 3)
a blue song
9
US politics
: tending to support Democratic candidates or policies
As has become increasingly clear over the past few general elections, with their red states and blue states, an American Presidential campaign is no longer truly national.—Hendrik Hertzberg
compare purple sense 3, red sense 5
bluely
adverb
blueness
noun
plural blues
1
: a color whose hue is that of the clear sky or that of the portion of the color spectrum lying between green and violet
Blue is his favorite color.
shades of blue
2
a
: a pigment or dye that colors blue
b
: bluing
adding blue to the laundry
3
a
: blue clothing or cloth
will be wearing blue
b
blues plural
: a blue costume or uniform
wearing their dress blues
4
a
: a Union soldier in the American Civil War
b
often capitalized
: the Union army
the Blue versus the Gray
6
: a blue object
the horse that won the blue [=blue ribbon]
… is bartered … like a stack of blues [=blue chips] in a Reno casino.—John Lewis
7
: bluestocking
praised the writings of her fellow blues
8
biology
: any of numerous small chiefly blue butterflies (family Lycaenidae)
9
: bluefish
fishing for blues
10
11
physics
: one of the three colors (see color entry 1 sense 15) that quarks have in the theory of quantum chromodynamics
One cannot have a single quark on its own because it would have a color (red, green, or blue). Instead, a red quark has to be joined to a green and a blue quark by a "string" of gluons (red + green + blue = white). Such a triplet constitutes a proton or a neutron.—Stephen Hawking
blued; blueing or bluing; blues
: to make (something) blue in color: such as
a
: to dye, tint, or paint (something) blue
Last, the generation of the grandmothers, in immaculately blued hair …—John Updike
Tattoos blued his upper arms.—Jerry Spinelli
b
: to heat (iron or steel) to about 550 to 600°F (288 to 316°C) so that it acquires a bluish protective coating
the blued barrel of the gun
Between banks shrouded with snow, the river gleamed darkly, like blued steel with gold chips of sunlight dancing on each riffle.—Pete Bodo
: to turn blue
their blueing fingers
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Merriam-Webster unabridged
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