BLUSH • E-FREE TRANSLATION.COM • Definition of Blush

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/bləʃ/ Listen

noun

Blush n.

A suffusion of the cheeks or face with red, as from a sense of shame, confusion, or modesty. "The rosy blush of love."

A red or reddish color; a rosy tint. "Light's last blushes tinged the distant hills."

At first blush, or At the first blush, at the first appearance or view. "At the first blush, we thought they had been ships come from France." Note: This phrase is used now more of ideas, opinions, etc., than of material things. "All purely identical propositions, obviously, and at first blush, appear," etc.

To put to the blush, to cause to blush with shame; to put to shame.

verb

Blush v. t.

To suffuse with a blush; to redden; to make roseate. (Obs.) "To blush and beautify the cheek again."

To express or make known by blushing. "I'll blush you thanks."

Blush v. i. (past & past part. blushed; pres. part. blushing)

To become suffused with red in the cheeks, as from a sense of shame, modesty, or confusion; to become red from such cause, as the cheeks or face. "To the nuptial bower I led her blushing like the morn." "In the presence of the shameless and unblushing, the young offender is ashamed to blush." "He would stroke The head of modest and ingenuous worth, That blushed at its own praise."

To grow red; to have a red or rosy color. "The sun of heaven, methought, was loth to set, But stayed, and made the western welkin blush."

To have a warm and delicate color, as some roses and other flowers. "Full many a flower is born to blush unseen."

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Etymology of 'Blush'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Blush" Quotes from Famous Books

... the war, and what you did for me, unspoken, because I would not force the sweetness of your modesty to a blush, are written here; and that there might be nothing wanting to sum up my numerous engagements (never in my hopes to be cancelled), the great duke, our mortal enemy, when my father's country lay open to his fury and the spoil of the victorious army, and I brought ...

— Hours in a Library - New Edition, with Additions. Vol. II (of 3) • Leslie Stephen

... let's put them off as long as we can. And the more we linger in the society of Mr. Bayne the better we ought to be. Up to last spring, I blush to admit, I'd never been favored much. Course, commutin' in and out the way I do, I didn't have a good show. But we passes the nod when we meets. Elisha P. never strains his neck durin' the exercise. You could detect his nod with the naked eye, though, and I expect that was a good deal ...

— Shorty McCabe on the Job • Sewell Ford

... of Hamburg now falling into disuse. It would be doing Herr Sorgenpfennig an eternal injustice did we pass over it in silence, more especially as he boasts of it as real "North German fare." Here we have it: raw herrings to begin with. Bah! I confess this does not sound well upon the first blush; but, then, a raw dried herring is somewhat different to one salted in a barrel. To cook it would be a sacrilege, say the Germans. And then the accompaniments! We have two dishes of wonderful little potatoes, baked in an oven, freshly peeled and shining; and in the centre of ...

— A Tramp's Wallet - stored by an English goldsmith during his wanderings in Germany and France • William Duthie

... Romans whom you have read of in "sheepskin," were you to know really what those monsters were, you would blush all over as red as a hollyhock, and put down the history-book in a fury. Many of our English worthies are no better. You are not in a situation to know the real characters of any one of them. They appear before you in their public capacities, ...

— The Second Funeral of Napoleon • William Makepeace Thackeray (AKA "Michael Angelo Titmarch")

... neither could make anything of it. Mister Masters's tongue became forthwith as helpless as a man tied hand and foot and gagged. He had nothing with which to pay for the delight of being cornered but his rosiest, steadiest blush and his crookedest and most embarrassed smile. But he retained a certain activity of mind and within himself was positively voluble with what he would say if ...

— IT and Other Stories • Gouverneur Morris

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