blue
Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.
Letters
4 characters
Language
English
word origin
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Detailed reference entry for the English word "blue", 4-letters, with pronunciation in International Phonetic Alphabet notation, etymology traced through Germanic and Romance roots where applicable, common misspelling variants catalogued from Hunspell error dictionaries, and usage frequency ranked against the top 100,000 English words in the Wordfreq corpus. PlainSpell covers English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German spelling with confusable-pair detection that highlights visually and phonetically similar words. This entry for "blue" includes synonyms, antonyms, homophones, and cross-language translation pointers sourced from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org extract. Whether you are verifying the correct spelling of "blue" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
blue is anEnglishadj. It means: Of a blue hue. Pronounced /bluː/. It ranks #761 in English word frequency. Often confused with but and buy.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | blue |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Adj |
| IPA | /bluː/ |
| Letters | 4 |
| Frequency rank | #761 |
| Misspellings tracked | 5 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency rank visualization
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for blue is 4 letters long, classified as anadj, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /bluː/. Corpus data places it at rank #761 in overall English word frequency, putting it firmly in the everyday core of the language.Wiktionary records 15 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our Hunspell-derived misspelling index lists 5 documented wrong-spelling variants for blue, with forms such as "bblue", "bleu", and "bllue". Each variant represents a distinct typo pattern that appears often enough in corpora to be worth flagging, typically a doubled-consonant error, a silent-letter drop, or a vowel substitution.It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "but", "buy", "bus", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English blewe, from Anglo-Norman blew (“blue”), from Middle French bleu, from Old French blöe, bleve, blef (“blue”), from Frankish *blāu (“blue”) (perhaps through a Late Latin blāvus, blāvius (“blue”) attested from Isidore of Seville), from Prot… Root origin matters for spelling because borrowed morphemes (Greek, Latin, Old French, Old English) carry their source-language orthographic conventions into modern English, which is why historical etymology is often the cleanest predictor of whether a cluster like "-ough", "-eau", or "-tion" will appear. For readers arriving here from a spelling check, the authoritative guidance is: the correct English form is blue, spelled B-L-U-E, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1Of a blue hue.
- 2Depressed, melancholic, sad.
- 3Having a bluish or purplish shade to the skin due to a lack of oxygen to the normally deep-red red blood cells; cyanotic.
- 4Pale, without redness or glare.
- 5Supportive of, run by (a member of), pertaining to, or dominated by a political party represented by the colour blue.
- 6Supportive of, run by (a member of), pertaining to, or dominated by a political party represented by the colour blue.
- 7Supportive of, run by (a member of), pertaining to, or dominated by a political party represented by the colour blue.
- 8Of, dominated by, or shifted toward the higher-frequency, or "bluer", end of the electromagnetic spectrum.
- 9Having a colour charge of blue.
- 10Extra rare; left very raw and cold.
- 11Having a coat of fur of a slaty gray shade.
- 12Severe or overly strict in morals; gloomy.
- 13Literary; scholarly; bluestockinged.
- 14Risqué; obscene; profane; pornographic.
- 15Drunk.
Etymology
From Middle English blewe, from Anglo-Norman blew (“blue”), from Middle French bleu, from Old French blöe, bleve, blef (“blue”), from Frankish *blāu (“blue”) (perhaps through a Late Latin blāvus, blāvius (“blue”) attested from Isidore of Seville), from Proto-Germanic *blēwaz (“blue, dark blue”), from Proto-Indo-European *bʰlēw- (“yellow, blond, grey”). Cognate with dialectal English blow (“blue”), Scots blue, blew (“blue”), North Frisian bla, blö (“blue”), Saterland Frisian blau (“blue”), Dutch blauw (“blue”), German blau (“blue”), Danish, Norwegian and Swedish blå (“blue”), Icelandic blár (“blue”), Latin flāvus (“yellow”), French bleu (“blue”), Middle Irish blá (“yellow”). Doublet of blow. Possibly related also to English blee (“colour”), from Old English blēo (“colour”); but direct derivatives of Proto-Germanic *blēwaz (“blue, dark blue”) in Old English include: Old English blāw and blēo (“blue”), Old English blǣwen (“bluish, light-blue”), blǣhǣwen (“blue-coloured, bluish, violet or purple colour”, literally “blue-hued”). There seems to be a parallel connection in Germanic between words for blue and colour, dually exemplified by Proto-West Germanic *blīu (“colour, blee”) and *blāu (“blue”); and Proto-Germanic *hiwją (“colour, hue”) and *hēwijaz (“blue, purple”). (depressed): Compare typologically Russian тоска́ зелёная (toská zeljónaja) (<+ зелёный (zeljónyj)).
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: bblue,bleu,bllue,bule,lbue
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
Relative frequency of common misspelling types for blue
Misspelling Variants of "blue"
Frequency rank: #761 in English
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Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter B in our English index: