bluebottle
Appearance
See also: blue-bottle
English
[edit]
Alternative forms
[edit]Etymology
[edit]From blue + bottle,[1] after the resemblance to shiny colored-glass bottles. In sense 3 (“cornflower”), via Middle English blewbothel. Sense 6 (“police officer”) is in reference to the colour of the uniform.
Pronunciation
[edit]Audio (General Australian): (file)
Noun
[edit]bluebottle (plural bluebottles)
- Any of various blowflies of the genus Calliphora that have an iridescent metallic-blue body and make a loud buzzing noise when flying.
- 1930, Sax Rohmer, The Day the World Ended, published 1969, page i. 16:
- The incredibly long body as well as the extended wings were of a gleaming purplish-gray colour: I can only liken it to that of a meat fly or common "bluebottle".
- A marine jellyfish of the genus Physalia, which includes Physalia physalis, the Portuguese man-of-war, and Physalia utriculus, the Pacific man-of-war; a man-of-war.
- A cornflower, a plant that grows in grain fields, Centaurea cyanus, with blue flowers resembling bottles.
- A blue ant, Diamma bicolor, a parasitic wasp native to Australia.
- Any of various large papilionid butterflies of the genus Graphium, also called triangles, etc.
- (UK, Australia, Ireland, slang, derogatory) A police officer.
- c. 1596–1599 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Second Part of Henry the Fourth, […]”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act V, scene vi]:
- I will have you as soundly swing’d for this, you bluebottle rogue!
- 1878, Charles Hindley, The life and times of James Catnach, page 206:
- […] comic writers […] have never failed to make capital out of the New Police, Peel's Raw-Lobsters, Peelers, Blue Bottles, &c., &c.
- 1882, Henry Herman, Henry Arthur Jones, The Silver King:
- COOMBE: He got the clinch only last week — eighteen months. You see it's no good having anybody here as ain't got a[sic] unblemished character. We don't want to have the bluebottles come sniffing round here, do we?
- (derogatory, obsolete) A bluestocking.
- 1813, Lord G. G. Byron, edited by Rowland E. Prothero, The Works Of Lord Byron Letters And Journals Vol II[1], page 358:
- To-morrow there is a party of purple at the “blue” Miss Berry’s. Shall I go? um! — I don’t much affect your blue-bottles ; — but one ought to be civil.
- 1846 February 22, “Letter from Spranger Barry, Esq.”, in Sunday Dispatch (New York)[2], page 2, Column 6:
- There appears to be a growing disposition on the part of the literary and dramatic blue-bottles of this city to get up a national drama and to manufacture a new race of actors.
- 1853 January 29, Geo. F. Pardon, “Common People”, in The Working Man’s Friend[3], page 282:
- ..and did not the rich dowager-countess Bluebottle marry her footman, who forthwith became a lord and was made a privy counsellor.
- 1922 December, Simon Pure, “The Londoner”, in The Bookman[4]:
- There are many literary bluebottles — those who feed upon the remains of literature and buzz about the heads of those who are yet alive in this domain.
Hypernyms
[edit]Coordinate terms
[edit]Derived terms
[edit]Translations
[edit]blowfly of the genus Calliphora
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Portuguese man-of-war — see Portuguese man-of-war
cornflower — see cornflower
blue ant — see blue ant
References
[edit]- ^ “bluebottle, n.”, in OED Online
, Oxford: Oxford University Press, launched 2000.
Categories:
- English compound terms
- English terms inherited from Middle English
- English terms derived from Middle English
- English terms with audio pronunciation
- English lemmas
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- Irish English
- English slang
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- en:Flowers
- en:Hydrozoans
- en:Hymenopterans
- en:Law enforcement
- en:Oestroid flies
- en:People
- en:Swallowtails
- en:Thistles