DICT.TW Dictionary Taiwan

 blue /ˈblu/
 藍色,晴天,大海;憂鬱,沮喪;藍調音樂,布魯斯舞曲(a.)藍色的

 Blue a. [Compar. Bluer superl. Bluest.]
 1. Having the color of the clear sky, or a hue resembling it, whether lighter or darker; as, the deep, blue sea; as blue as a sapphire; blue violets. “The blue firmament.”
 2. Pale, without redness or glare, -- said of a flame; hence, of the color of burning brimstone, betokening the presence of ghosts or devils; as, the candle burns blue; the air was blue with oaths.
 3. Low in spirits; melancholy; as, to feel blue.
 4. Suited to produce low spirits; gloomy in prospect; as, thongs looked blue. [Colloq.]
 5. Severe or over strict in morals; gloom; as, blue and sour religionists; suiting one who is over strict in morals; inculcating an impracticable, severe, or gloomy mortality; as, blue laws.
 6. Literary; -- applied to women; -- an abbreviation of bluestocking. [Colloq.]
    The ladies were very blue and well informed.   --Thackeray.
 Blue asbestus. See Crocidolite.
 Blue black, of, or having, a very dark blue color, almost black.
 Blue blood. See under Blood.
 Blue buck Zool., a small South African antelope (Cephalophus pygmæus); also applied to a larger species (Ægoceras leucophæus); the blaubok.
 Blue cod Zool., the buffalo cod.
 Blue crab Zool., the common edible crab of the Atlantic coast of the United States (Callinectes hastatus).
 Blue curls Bot., a common plant (Trichostema dichotomum), resembling pennyroyal, and hence called also bastard pennyroyal.
 Blue devils, apparitions supposed to be seen by persons suffering with delirium tremens; hence, very low spirits.  “Can Gumbo shut the hall door upon blue devils, or lay them all in a red sea of claret?” --Thackeray.
 Blue gage. See under Gage, a plum.
 Blue gum, an Australian myrtaceous tree (Eucalyptus globulus), of the loftiest proportions, now cultivated in tropical and warm temperate regions for its timber, and as a protection against malaria. The essential oil is beginning to be used in medicine. The timber is very useful. See Eucalyptus.
 Blue jack, Blue stone, blue vitriol; sulphate of copper.
 Blue jacket, a man-of war's man; a sailor wearing a naval uniform.
 Blue jaundice. See under Jaundice.
 Blue laws, a name first used in the eighteenth century to describe certain supposititious laws of extreme rigor reported to have been enacted in New Haven; hence, any puritanical laws. [U. S.]
 Blue light, a composition which burns with a brilliant blue flame; -- used in pyrotechnics and as a night signal at sea, and in military operations.
 Blue mantle Her., one of the four pursuivants of the English college of arms; -- so called from the color of his official robes.
 Blue mass, a preparation of mercury from which is formed the blue pill. --McElrath.
 Blue mold or Blue mould, the blue fungus (Aspergillus glaucus) which grows on cheese. --Brande & C.
 Blue Monday, (a) a Monday following a Sunday of dissipation, or itself given to dissipation (as the Monday before Lent). (b) a Monday considered as depressing because it is a workday in contrast to the relaxation of the weekend.
 Blue ointment Med., mercurial ointment.
 Blue Peter British Marine, a blue flag with a white square in the center, used as a signal for sailing, to recall boats, etc. It is a corruption of blue repeater, one of the British signal flags.
 Blue pill. Med. (a) A pill of prepared mercury, used as an aperient, etc. (b) Blue mass.
 Blue ribbon. (a) The ribbon worn by members of the order of the Garter; -- hence, a member of that order. (b) Anything the attainment of which is an object of great ambition; a distinction; a prize. “These [scholarships] were the --=\blue ribbon of the college.”\= --Farrar. (c) The distinctive badge of certain temperance or total abstinence organizations, as of the --Blue ribbon Army.
 Blue ruin, utter ruin; also, gin. [Eng. Slang] --Carlyle.
 Blue spar Min., azure spar; lazulite. See Lazulite.
 Blue thrush Zool., a European and Asiatic thrush (Petrocossyphus cyaneas).
 Blue verditer. See Verditer.
 Blue vitriol Chem., sulphate of copper, a violet blue crystallized salt, used in electric batteries, calico printing, etc.
 Blue water, the open ocean.
 Big Blue, the International Business Machines corporation. [Wall Street slang.]
 To look blue, to look disheartened or dejected.
 True blue, genuine and thorough; not modified, nor mixed; not spurious; specifically, of uncompromising Presbyterianism, blue being the color adopted by the Covenanters.
 For his religion . . .
 'T was Presbyterian, true blue.   --Hudibras.

 Blue n.
 1. One of the seven colors into which the rays of light divide themselves, when refracted through a glass prism; the color of the clear sky, or a color resembling that, whether lighter or darker; a pigment having such color. Sometimes, poetically, the sky; as, to fly off into the blue.
 2. A pedantic woman; a bluestocking. [Colloq.]
 3. pl.  Low spirits; a fit of despondency; melancholy. [Colloq.]
 Berlin blue, Prussian blue.
 Mineral blue. See under Mineral.
 Prussian blue. See under Prussian.

 Blue, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Blued p. pr. & vb. n. Bluing.] To make blue; to dye of a blue color; to make blue by heating, as metals, etc.
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 blue
      adj 1: having a color similar to that of a clear unclouded sky;
             "October's bright blue weather"- Helen Hunt Jackson;
             "a blue flame"; "blue haze of tobacco smoke" [syn: bluish,
              blueish, light-blue, dark-blue, blue-black]
      2: used to signify the Union forces in the Civil War (who wore
         blue uniforms); "a ragged blue line"
      3: low in spirits; "lonely and blue in a strange city";
         "depressed by the loss of his job"; "a dispirited and
         resigned expression on her face"; "downcast after his
         defeat"; "feeling discouraged and downhearted" [syn: depressed,
          dispirited, down(p), downcast, downhearted, down
         in the mouth, low, low-spirited]
      4: characterized by profanity or cursing; "foul-mouthed and
         blasphemous"; "blue language"; "profane words" [syn: blasphemous,
          profane]
      5: suggestive of sexual impropriety; "a blue movie"; "blue
         jokes"; "he skips asterisks and gives you the gamy
         details"; "a juicy scandal"; "a naughty wink"; "naughty
         words"; "racy anecdotes"; "a risque story"; "spicy gossip"
         [syn: gamy, gamey, juicy, naughty, racy, risque,
          spicy]
      6: belonging to or characteristic of the nobility or
         aristocracy; "an aristocratic family"; "aristocratic
         Bostonians"; "aristocratic government"; "a blue family";
         "blue blood"; "the blue-blooded aristocracy"; "of gentle
         blood"; "patrician landholders of the American South";
         "aristocratic bearing"; "aristocratic features";
         "patrician tastes" [syn: aristocratic, aristocratical,
          blue-blooded, gentle, patrician]
      7: morally rigorous and strict; "blue laws"; "the puritan work
         ethic"; "puritanic distaste for alcohol"; "she was
         anything but puritanical in her behavior" [syn: blue(a),
          puritan, puritanic, puritanical]
      8: causing dejection; "a blue day"; "the dark days of the war";
         "a week of rainy depressing weather"; "a disconsolate
         winter landscape"; "the first dismal dispiriting days of
         November"; "a dark gloomy day"; "grim rainy weather" [syn:
          dark, depressing, disconsolate, dismal, dispiriting,
          gloomy, grim]
      n 1: the color of the clear sky in the daytime; "he had eyes of
           bright blue" [syn: blueness]
      2: blue clothing; "she was wearing blue"
      3: any organization or party whose uniforms or badges are blue;
         "the Union army was a vast blue"
      4: the sky as viewed during daylight; "he shot an arrow into
         the blue" [syn: blue sky, blue air, wild blue yonder]
      5: used to whiten laundry or hair or give it a bluish tinge
         [syn: bluing, blueing]
      6: the sodium salt of amobarbital that is used as a
         barbiturate; used as a sedative and a hypnotic [syn: amobarbital
         sodium, blue angel, blue devil, Amytal]
      7: any of numerous small chiefly blue butterflies of the family
         Lycaenidae
      v : turn blue
      [also: bluest, bluer]

 Blue
    generally associated with purple (Ex. 25:4; 26:1, 31, 36, etc.).
    It is supposed to have been obtained from a shellfish of the
    Mediterranean, the Helix ianthina of Linnaeus. The robe of the
    high priest's ephod was to be all of this colour (Ex. 28:31),
    also the loops of the curtains (26:4) and the ribbon of the
    breastplate (28:28). Blue cloths were also made for various
    sacred purposes (Num. 4:6, 7, 9, 11, 12). (See COLOUR.)