Color me blue sulfur12/5/2023 Than open such sleight truths, as you require.Īdditionally, it would be premature to conclude that 'blue blazes' originated in the USA. Vast murmurs vse to breake, and from their soundes In these blew fires, and out of whose dim fumes Of knowing spirits that can doe more than these. Of that inscrutable darkenesse, where are hidĪll deepest truths, and secrets neuer seene, Why calledst thou me to this accursed light? For example, see this use of 'blue fires' in the 1607 tragedy, Bussy d'Ambois, by George Chapman: ![]() The OED suggestion perhaps puts the cart before the horse it seems as likely that blue was associated with hellfire in antiquity ( caeruleus ignis) before the color of the flames of burning sulphur.įrom that traditional, long-standing association of dark (midnight) blue and the light in hell, the 'blue' in the 'blue blazes' collocation rises as a matter of course. ![]() Perhaps from the blue flame produced by burning sulphur (brimstone), associated with the fires of hell. to burn blue: (of a candle or lamp) to burn with a blue flame, traditionally taken as an evil omen, a portent of death, or a sign that a ghost or the Devil is present also figurative. As observed in the OED for a phrase first attested from King Richard III, ![]() That association probably owes as much to the quality of the light emitted by a blue flame (that is, dark and dim) as to the color of the flame of burning sulphur. It is now dead midnight."), and likely dates to classical antiquity. Farmer, "Slang and Its Analogues Past and Present," 1890, p.252)Īs a supplement to the existing fine answers, I note that the association of 'blue' with hellfire certainly predates Shakespeare (see Richard III, 1597: "The lights burne blew. Expressive alike of the utmost contempt, as of all that men hold dearest and love best, its manifold combinations, in ever varying shades of meaning, greet the philologist at every turn. May 451: How they manage to do it, I can’t think! It’s a blue wonder to me!īlue, on the other hand, appears to be a very common and versatile term especially in colloquial usage:įew words enter more largely into the composition of slang, and colloquialisms bordering on slang, than does the word BLUE.
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