blee
Appearance
See also: Blee
English
[edit]Pronunciation
[edit]- (Received Pronunciation, General American) IPA(key): /bliː/
Audio (Southern England): (file)
- Rhymes: -iː
Etymology 1
[edit]From Middle English blee, ble, from Old English blēo, bleoh (“color, hue; complexion, form”), from Proto-West Germanic *blīu (“color, blee”).
Cognate with Scots ble, blee, blie (“color, complexion”), Old Frisian blī, blie (“color, hue; complexion”) (whence North Frisian bläy, Saterland Frisian Bläier), Middle Dutch blie, blye (“color”). Doublet of bly.
Noun
[edit]blee (countable and uncountable, plural blees)
- (rare, chiefly poetic) Color, hue. [from 9th to early 17th c.]
- 1850, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, “Rhyme of the Duchess May”, in Poems. [...] In Two Volumes, new edition, volume II, London: Chapman & Hall, 193, Piccadilly. (Late, 186 Strand), →OCLC, stanza XXVI, page 57:
- Then the captain, young Lord Leigh, with his eyes so grey of blee,— / Toll slowly.
- 1893, “A Story of Mothering Sunday.”, in The Sunday at Home, volume 40, Religious Tract Society, page 381:
- IT was a Mothering Sunday ; / The sky was clear to see / Above the white, white snowdrop, / And the crocus of golden blee.
- 1896, Emily Henrietta Hickey, “The Ship from Tirnanoge”, in Poems by Emily Hickley, page 48:
- The captain wonderful to see / With eyes a-change in depth and blee; / A-change, a-change for ever and aye, / Blue, and purple, and black, and gray; / And hair like the weed that finds a home / In the depth of a trail of white sea-foam.
- 1913, Francis Thompson, "Stolen Fruit of Eden-Tree (‘The Schoolmaster for God’)", in Brigid M. Boardman (ed.), The Poems of Francis Thompson: A New Edition, Continuum, 2001, lines 59 to 64.
- The fruit thereof is fair and fine, / And golden of its blee, / That well the Son of God might think / It came of Paradise—tree, / Nor deem how its root with cold Pit-fire / Is suckled evilly.
- 1931 October, Padraic Colum, “Before the Fair”, in Lascelles Abercrombie, editor, New English Poems: A Miscellany of Contemporary Verse Never before Published, London: Victor Gollancz Ltd., 14 Henrietta Street, Covent Garden, →OCLC, page 142:
- "Live, live," and "Here, here," the blackbird / From the top of the bare ash-tree, / Over the acres whistles / With beak of yellow blee.
- (archaic) Color of the face, complexion, coloring. [from 9th to early 17th c.]
- "The Felon Sow of Rokeby and the Freers of Richmond", in Christopher Clarkson, The History of Richmond, in the County of York, Thomas Bowman (publ., 1821, appendix, cvii.
- The sew she would not Latin heare, / But rudely rushed at the Frear, / That he blinked all his blee ; / And when she would have taken her hold, / The Fryar leaped as Jesus wold, / And bealed him with a tree.
- "The Gay Goss-hawk", The poetical works of Sir Walter Scott: first series, containing Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, Sir Tristrem, and Dramatic Pieces, Baudry's European Library (publ.), 1838, page 189 (glossed as “bloom”).
- And pale, pale grew her rosy cheeck, / That was sae bright of blee,4 / And she seem'd to be as surely dead / As any one could be.
- [1885], Richard F[rancis] Burton, translator and editor, “The Porter and the Three Ladies of Baghdad”, in A Plain and Literal Translation of the Arabian Nights’ Entertainments, now Entituled The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night: With Introduction Explanatory Notes on the Manners and Customs of Moslem Men and a Terminal Essay upon the History of The Nights, Shammar edition, volume I, [s.n.]: Printed by the Burton Club for private subscribers only, →OCLC, page 85:
- Thereupon sat a lady bright of blee, with brow beaming brilliancy, the dream of philosophy, whose eyes were fraught with Babel's gramarye and her eyebrows were arched as for archery; her breath breathed ambergris and perfumery and her lips were sugar to taste and carnelian to see.
- 1927, P. Geyl (tr.), The Tale of Beatrice, Martinus Nijhoff (publ.), page 5.
- So there they sat a long long time, / Nor could I tell you in my rhyme / How oft their cheeks did change their blee.
- "The Felon Sow of Rokeby and the Freers of Richmond", in Christopher Clarkson, The History of Richmond, in the County of York, Thomas Bowman (publ., 1821, appendix, cvii.
- (archaic) Consistency, form, texture. [from 9th to early 17th c.]
- 1880, Algernon Charles Swinburne, “The Poet and the Woodlouse”, in The Heptalogia, or, The Seven against Sense: A Cap with Seven Bells (Specimens of Modern Poets), London: Chatto & Windus, Piccadilly, →OCLC, page 46:
- I am thrilled half cosmically through by cryptophantic surgings / Till the rhythmic hills roar silent through a spongious kind of blee: / And earth's soul yawns disembowelled of her pancreatic organs, / Like a madrepore if mesmerized, in rapt catalepsy.
- (East Anglia) General resemblance, likeness; appearance, aspect, look.
- 16th c., Nicholas Grimald, The life and poems of Nicholas Grimald, Yale Studies in English, Volume 69, 1925, page 379.
- Meane beautie doth soone fade: therof playn hee, / Who nothing loves in woman, but her blee.
- [1830, Robert Forby, “BLEE”, in The Vocabulary of East Anglia; an Attempt to Record the Vulgar Tongue of the Twin Sister Counties, Norfolk and Suffolk, as It Existed in the Last Twenty Years of the Eighteenth Century, and still Exists; with Proof of Its Antiquity from Etymology and Authority. [...] In Two Volumes, volume I, London: Printed by and for J[ohn] B[oyer] Nichols and Son, 25, Parliament Street, →OCLC, pages 27–28:
- BLEE, s[ubstantive] general resemblance, not "colour and complexion," as the dictt. [dictionaries in general] give it; Mr. Nares asserts that it was obsolete in the reign of Queen Elizabeth. If so, we have a very extraordinary instance of the renascence of a word; for it is in use every day in the sense here given to it. Ex. "That boy has a strong blee of his father." br. [Brockett's Glossary] in the sense of complexion. ch. p. g. [Chaucer; Percy's Glossary]]
- 16th c., Nicholas Grimald, The life and poems of Nicholas Grimald, Yale Studies in English, Volume 69, 1925, page 379.
Synonyms
[edit]Related terms
[edit]Translations
[edit]Translations
Etymology 2
[edit]Associated with Smash Hits magazine, where it may have originated.
Interjection
[edit]blee
- (informal) Expressing disgust or trepidation.
- 1988, Sinclair User, number 79:
- Bikers […] tend to appear at the edges of the road and then zoom in front of your car. […] As you have probably found out already, one touch of these and it's time to order the wooden box. (Blee!)
- 1991, Nick Roberts, Cavemania (video game review) in Crash (issue 87, page 47)
- It's a boring life being a cave man. No telly, no video and not even a Spectrum! Blee! All you can do is eat, but Brontosaurus steaks can be very tough.
Anagrams
[edit]Nafaanra
[edit]Noun
[edit]blee
- night
- Aŋge blee ndaa fuŋu ta.
- Last night I had a house guest.
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- Rhymes:English/iː
- Rhymes:English/iː/1 syllable
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