1824. Byron, Don Juan, xvi., 47. She also had a twilight tinge of
blue. [M.]
6. (University.)—At Oxford and Cambridge a man is said to get his blue
when selected as a competitor in inter-university sports. The
University colours are, for Oxford, dark blue; and for Cambridge, light
blue. Cf., To get one’s silk, said of a barrister when made Queen’s
Counsel.
Adj.—1. A contemptuous epithet applied usually to women of literary
tastes.—See Blue-stocking. The French have elle est bleue celle-là; en
voilà une de bleue; je la trouve bleue.
1788. Mad. D’Arblay, Diary (1842), iv., p. 219. Nobody would have
thought it more odd or more blue.
1834. Southey, The Doctor, ch. lxxxix. Les Dames des Roches, both
mother and daughter were remarkable and exemplary women; and there
was a time when Poictiers derived as much glory from those blue
ladies as from the Black Prince.
1839. Lever, Harry Lorrequer, ch. xi. She was a little, a very
little blue—rather a babbler in the ‘ologies’ than a real disciple.
1842. Dickens, American Notes, ch. iii., p. 33. Blue ladies there
are, in Boston; but like philosophers of that colour and sex in
most other latitudes, they rather desire to be thought superior
than to be so.
1852. F. E. Smedley, Lewis Arundel, ch. xxxiii. She had been
growing decidedly blue. Not only had she, under Bray’s auspices,
published a series of papers in Blunt’s Magazine, but she had
positively written a child’s book.
1864. Spectator, No. 1875, p. 660. A clever, sensible woman, rather
blue.
2. Indecent; ‘smutty’; obscene. This may be derived from the blue dress
of harlots—see preceding, subs., 1.—although Hotten suggests it as
coming from the French Bibliothèque Bleu, a series of books of very
questionable character. Books or conversation of an entirely opposite
nature are said to be brown or Quakerish, i.e., serious, grave, decent.
3. Gloomy; fearful; depressed; low-spirited. Cf., To look blue, Blue
funk, and In the blues. Possibly an allusion to the blueness of cold.
1857. A. Trollope, Three Clerks, ch. xxviii. Charley replied that
neither had he any money at home. ‘That’s blue,’ said the man. ‘It
is rather blue,’ said Charley.
1862. Trollope, Orley Farm, I., p. 93. It’s blue; uncommon blue.
1864. Yates, Broken to Harness, I., p. 60. ‘My dear Charlie,’ said
the girl.... ‘That certainly is a blue look-out,’ she continued—for
however earnest was her purpose she would not but express herself
in her slang metaphor.
1872. S. L. Clemens (‘Mark Twain’), Roughing It, ch. xl. I kept up
my blue meditations.
1874. S. L. Clemens (‘Mark Twain’), Gilded Age, ch. xxvii. I had
forgotten dear, but when a body gets blue, a body forgets
everything.... I am sorry I was blue, but it did seem as if
everything had been going against me for whole ages.
Verb.—1. To blush. Cf., subs., sense 3.
1709. Steele and Swift, Tatler, No. 71, p. 8. If a Virgin blushes,
we no longer cry she blues. [M.]
2. To pawn; pledge; spend; actually to get rid of money quickly. Cf.,
Blew. There are two suggested derivations of the word when used in this
sense; (1) that it is connected with ‘blown,’ i.e., dissipated or
scattered; and (2) that money so squandered has disappeared as
effectually as if it had passed into the blue, i.e., the sky or the
deep sea. The German has ins blaue hinein, ‘away into the blue,’
equivalent to the French passer au bleu. Faire passer au bleu is to
dissipate, spend, or squander. For synonyms, in the sense of to pawn,
see Pop.
1880. Punch’s Almanac, p. 2. This top coat?—would blue it.
1887. Punch, 10 Sept., p. 111. I never minds blueing the pieces
purvided I gets a good spree.