English Explanatory Dictionary

blues

English dictionary entry

Meanings

noun
  1. plural of blue
noun
  1. A feeling of sadness or depression.
  2. One's particular life experience, particularly including the hardships one has faced.
  3. The negative emotional state produced by a particular action, occupation, experience, or idea.
  4. A musical form, of African-American origin, generally featuring an eight-bar or twelve-bar blues structure and using the blues scale.
  5. A musical composition following blues forms.
  6. A uniform made principally of a blue fabric, and especially a full dress uniform thus colored.
  7. Any of various blue pills sold on the street, mimicking the appearance of prescription pain killer tablets.
verb
  1. third-person singular simple present indicative of blue
name
  1. Any of several sports teams whose uniform is predominantly blue, such as:
  2. The chariot-racing faction of the Roman circus and Constantinopolitan hippodrome that wore blue.
  3. Carlton Football Club.
  4. New South Wales.
  5. Birmingham City FC.
  6. Everton FC.
  7. Chelsea FC.
  8. Manchester City FC.

Pronunciation

blo͞oz /bluːz/ LL-Q1860 (eng)-Persent101-blues.wav

Word forms

blues

Etymology

In reference to the ancient Roman and medieval Byzantine racing faction, a calque of Latin venetī (“Sea-Blues”) or factio veneta (“the sea-blue faction”) and Byzantine Greek Βένετοι (Bénetoi, “Blues”).

Synonyms

blueness tristesse mirthless blues crestfallenness dejection depression despondency distress dolefulness downheartedness drearihead forlornness grief heartsore ill-being infelicity melancholia melancholy misery mishappiness mourn prosternation regret rue ruth sadness sorrow sorrowfulness tristfulness undelight unhappiness woe woefare wretchedness

Derived words

Arctic blues baby blues blooze blue note blues and twos blueshead bluesify bluesish blueslike bluesman blues-rock blues scale bluester blueswoman bluesy Chicago blues classic female blues club blues corona blues country blues country-blues cry the blues delta blues eight-bar blues electric blues folk blues folk-blues gospel blues gospel-blues have the blues hill country blues jump blues Piedmont blues preblues punk-blues rhythm and blues soul-blues soul blues summer blues swamp blues talking blues tease and blues tees and blues Texas blues theatre blues Ts and blues twelve-bar blues twelve bar blues vaudeville blues winter blues

Translations

Arabic: بْلُوز Arabic: بَلُوز Armenian: բլյուզ Belarusian: блюз Bulgarian: блус Chinese Mandarin: 藍調 /蓝调 Chinese Mandarin: 布魯斯 /布鲁斯 Danish: blues Esperanto: bluso Finnish: blues French: blues Georgian: ბლუზი German: Blues Greek: μπλουζ Hebrew: בלוז Hindi: ब्लूज़ Japanese: ブルース Korean: 블루스 Kyrgyz: блюз Māori: puoro kōrangaranga Persian: بلوز Polish: blues Portuguese: blues Russian: блюз Serbo-Croatian: bluz Swedish: blues Thai: บลูส์ Turkish: blues Ukrainian: блюз
This entry uses open data from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA/GFDL). Word forms are used for search and are not indexed as separate pages.
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