unblue

English

Etymology

un- +‎ blue

Adjective

unblue (not comparable)

1. (rare outside philosophy) Not blue.
   • 1992, Susan Burmeister-Brown, Linda Davies, editors, Glimmer Train Stories:

     […] a god in an unblue sky.

   • 1997, University of Arizona Dept. of English, Sonora Review:

     Soon an associational chain reaction occurs that stains blue all that has remained unblue...

   • 2000, Charles Travis, Unshadowed thought: representation in thought and language:

     A philosopher, busily sorting the world into the blue and the unblue, tells us that some ink is blue. We look at the ink one way, and it looks blue.

   • 2007, Barbara Blackman, Bryony Cosgrove, Judith Wright, Portrait of a friendship:

     Mind you, if they fly in downstairs, they are quite happy to settle for unblue mangoes.

Verb

unblue (third-person singular simple present unblues, present participle unblueing or unbluing, simple past and past participle unblued)

1. (intransitive, rare, chiefly poetic) To cease being blue.
   • 2006, Honor Moore, Red Shoes: Poems, →ISBN, page 26:

     Blue at some distances unblues, […]

   • 2007, Barry Hannah, Yonder Stands Your Orphan, →ISBN, page 18:

     The boy was very hurt in the throat and his face was only now unbluing.

2. (transitive, rare, chiefly poetic) To cause (something) to cease being blue; to make (something) not blue.
   • 1987, Indiana Review, number 10, page 24:

     […] to clothe bodies surprised by bullets, to unblue hands frozen in ditches, […]

   • 2010, Ron Dakron, Newt, →ISBN, page 26:

     They look like iced teeth where a storm unblues them.