blue – English adjective declension

Adjective: blue

Comparison Forms

Synthetic

Comparative	bluer
Superlative	bluest

Perifrastic

Comparative	more blue
Superlative	most blue

Sample Sentences

the deep blue sea
Why is the sky blue?
He was wearing a blue t-shirt.
Gerty's were of the bluest Irish blue, set off by lustrous lashes and dark expressive brows. Time was when those brows were not so silkily seductive [1922 February, James Joyce, “[Episode 13]”, in Ulysses, Paris: Shakespeare and Company, […], →OCLC:]
“Heavens!” exclaimed Nina, “the blue-stocking and the fogy!—and yours are pale blue, Eileen!—you’re about as self-conscious as Drina—slumping there with your hair tumbling à la Mérode! Oh, it's very picturesque, of course, but a straight spine and good grooming is better.[…]” [1907 August, Robert W[illiam] Chambers, chapter IX, in The Younger Set, New York, N.Y.: D. Appleton & Company, →OCLC:]
"Will you play some of the 'Garden' now?" she asked. "I think I should like it. I'm just the least bit blue." [1904, Guy Wetmore Carryl, The Transgression of Andrew Vane, Henry Holt and Company, page 140:]
But I'm bluer than blue / Sadder than sad. [1978, Michael Johnson, Bluer Than Blue:]
My hands were blue with cold.
The divers got them out of the car just in time – they were starting to turn blue.
The candle burns blue.
I live in a blue constituency. Congress turned blue in the mid-term elections.
Illawarra turns blue in Liberal washout
blue and sour religionists; blue laws
Some of the ladies were very blue and well informed, reading Mrs. Somerville and frequenting the Royal Institution; others were severe and Evangelical, and held by Exeter Hall. [1847 January – 1848 July, William Makepeace Thackeray, chapter 61, in Vanity Fair […], London: Bradbury and Evans […], published 1848, →OCLC:]
His material is too blue for prime time.
The air was blue with oaths.
a blue movie
My wine I drank and oft got blue / On brandy, gin and whisky too— / Until my reputation gay, / Along with care, was cast away — [1847, Jacob Carter, My Drunken Life, in Fifteen Chapters, from 1825 to 1847, page 76:]

Adjectives inflected like blue

serene, severe, secure, sedate, wheelie, simple, complete, fulsome, sprightlie, discrete, plosive, bizarre, brusque, brittle, wholesome, sincere, shystie, loveable, prophane, terrible, etc. (List truncated at 20 adjectives)

Etymology

1. From Middle English blew, blewe, from Anglo-Norman blew, 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”).
2. 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 Bokmål, Norwegian Nynorsk, and Swedish blå (“blue”), Faroese bláur (“blue”), Icelandic blár (“blue”), Latin flāvus (“yellow”), French bleu (“blue”), Middle Irish blá (“yellow”). Doublet of blow.
3. 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 *hāwī (“blue, purple”).
4. (depressed): Compare typologically Russian тоска́ зелёная (toská zeljónaja) (<+ зелёный (zeljónyj)). Also compare фиоле́тово (fiolétovo). See: Dutch Adjectives 'blauw', German Adjectives 'blau', Latin Adjectives 'flāvus', French Adjectives 'bleu'.