blue blood

See also: blueblood and blue-blood

English

Alternative forms

• blue-blood, blueblood

Etymology

Calque of Spanish sangre azul (compare also French sang bleu), probably in reference to the blue-hued veins more easily seen on the skin of White people—particularly the highclass ones, whereas the skin of lowclass/peasantry Caucasians (who would often be toiling away under the sun) would naturally tan in order to protect itself from UV rays, thus losing its visible veins.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈbluˌblʌd/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

Noun

blue blood (countable and uncountable, plural blue bloods)

1. (uncountable) Noble or aristocratic ancestry.
   • 1883, George Bernard Shaw, chapter III, in An Unsocial Socialist:

     "He loves you, Jane. Thin persons like a fine armful of a woman. Pharaoh, who is a cad, likes blue blood on the same principle of the attraction of opposites. That is why he is captivated by Gertrude's aristocratic air."

2. (countable) An aristocrat.
   • 1964 June 16, “All Eyes On Lema At U.S. Open This Week”, in The Indianapolis Star, volume 62, number 11, Indianapolis, Ind., page 22:

     The bluebloods of golf began pouring into the sweltering nation’s capital yesterday for the 64th U.S. Open championship, and the hottest topic was not Arnold Palmer or Jack Nicklaus, but Champagne Tony Lema.

   • 2024 May 3, Jacob Bernstein, Madison Malone Kircher, Sapna Maheshwari, “TikTok’s Boss Goes From Reserved Tech Exec to Met Gala Chair”, in The New York Times‎^[1], →ISSN, archived from the original on 3 May 2024:

     His expected appearance at the Met Gala — once a staid affair for New York blue bloods that has become an East Coast Oscars on Ms. Wintour’s watch — can be viewed as part of TikTok’s shift in how it presents itself to the public.

3. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see blue,‎ blood.

   Octopuses and squids are examples of animals that have blue blood.

Derived terms

• blue-blooded
• blue-bloodedness

Translations

noble or aristocratic ancestry

• Bulgarian: синя кръв f (sinja krǎv)
• Catalan: sang blava f
• Czech: modrá krev (cs) f
• Dutch: blauw bloed n
• Estonian: siniveri
• French: sang bleu (fr) m
• Galician: sangue azul (gl) m
• German: blaues Blut n
• Greek: γαλαζοαίματος (el) m (galazoaímatos)
• Hungarian: kékvér (hu)
• Icelandic: blátt blóð n
• Indonesian: darah biru (id)
• Italian: sangue blu m
• Japanese: 青い血 (aoi chi)
• Kazakh: ақсүйек (aqsüiek, literally “white bone”)
• Korean: 귀족 계급 (gwijok gyegeup)
• Kyrgyz: аристократ (ky) (aristokrat), ак сөөк (ky) (ak söök)
• Macedonian: сина крв f (sina krv)
• Malay: darah putih (literally “white blood”)
• Norwegian:

  Bokmål: blått blod n

  Nynorsk: blått blod n

• Polish: błękitna krew (pl) f
• Portuguese: sangue azul (pt) m
• Romanian: sânge albastru n
• Russian: голуба́я кровь (ru) f (golubája krovʹ), бе́лая кость (ru) f (bélaja kostʹ, literally “white bone”)
• Serbo-Croatian:

  Cyrillic: плава крв

  Latin: plava krv

• Slovak: modrá krv (sk) f
• Spanish: sangre azul (es) f
• Swedish: blått blod n
• Tagalog: dugong bughaw, dugong mahal
• Turkish: mavi kan
• Vietnamese: quý tộc (vi)

aristocrat

• German: Blaublüter (de) m, Blaublüterin f
• Indonesian: darah biru (id)
• Turkish: mavi kanlı, asilzade (tr), aristokrat (tr)