bluet

English

Etymology

From Middle English blawede, blewed, blewet, bloued, blowed, bloweth,[1][2] from Middle English blewe (“blue”).[1][3] Alternatively, perhaps from Old French bleuet (diminutive of bleu (“blue”)).[2] Compare Modern French bleuet (“cornflower”).

Pronunciation

  • IPA(key): /bluːɪt/
  • Homophone: blewit

Noun

bluet (plural bluets)

  1. Any of several different plants, from several genera, having bluish flowers.
    • 1913, Robert Frost, 'The Vantage Point':
      My breathing shakes the bluet like a breeze [...].
    • 1969, Vladimir Nabokov, Ada or Ardor, Penguin, published 2011, page 232:
      They passed undulating fields of wheat speckled with the confetti of poppies and bluets.
    1. Centaurea, a plant genus in the family Asteraceae
    2. Several plant genera in the family Rubiaceae, notably Houstonia and Oldenlandiopsis.
  2. Any of several small damselfly species, including the genera Coenagrion and Enallagma.

Derived terms

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 “bleuet, n.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007.
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 “bluet, n.”, in OED Online ⁠, Oxford: Oxford University Press, launched 2000.
  3. ^ “bluet, n.”, in Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster, 1996–present.

Further reading

Anagrams

This article is issued from Wiktionary. The text is available under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 unless otherwise noted. Additional terms may apply for the media files.