Adjacent Words

Blush definitions

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Webster's 1828 Dictionary

BLUSH, v.i.
1. To redden in the cheeks or face; to be suddenly suffused with a red color in the cheeks or face, from a sense of guilt, shame, confusion, modesty, diffidence or surprise; followed by at or for, before the cause of blushing; as, blush at your vices;blush for your degraded country.
In the presence of the shameless and unblushing, the young offender is ashamed to blush.
2. To bear a blooming red color, or any soft bright color; as the blushing rose.
He bears his blushing honors thick upon him.
Shakespeare has used this word in a transitive sense, to make red, and it may be allowable in poetry.
BLUSH, n. A red color suffusing the cheeks only, or the face generally, and excited by confusion, which may spring from shame, guilt, modesty, diffidence or surprise.
The rosy blush of love.
1. A red or reddish color.
2. Sudden appearance; a glance; a sense taken from the sudden suffusion of the face in blushing;; as, a proposition appears absurd at first blush.

WordNet (r) 3.0 (2005)

n
1: a rosy color (especially in the cheeks) taken as a sign of good health [syn: bloom, blush, flush, rosiness]
2: sudden reddening of the face (as from embarrassment or guilt or shame or modesty) [syn: blush, flush] v
1: turn red, as if in embarrassment or shame; "The girl blushed when a young man whistled as she walked by" [syn: blush, crimson, flush, redden]
2: become rosy or reddish; "her cheeks blushed in the cold winter air"

Merriam Webster's

I. noun Etymology: Middle English, probably from blusshen Date: 14th century 1. outward appearance ; view <at first blush> 2. a reddening of the face especially from shame, modesty, or confusion 3. a red or rosy tint 4. a cosmetic applied to the face to give a usually pink color or to accent the cheekbones • blushful adjective II. intransitive verb Etymology: Middle English blusshen, from Old English blyscan to redden; akin to Old English bly?sa flame, Old High German bluhhen to burn brightly Date: 15th century 1. to become red in the face especially from shame, modesty, or confusion 2. to feel shame or embarrassment 3. to have a rosy or fresh color ; bloom • blushingly adverb

Oxford Reference Dictionary

v. & n. --v.intr. 1 a develop a pink tinge in the face from embarrassment or shame. b (of the face) redden in this way. 2 feel embarrassed or ashamed. 3 be or become red or pink. --n. 1 the act of blushing. 2 a pink tinge. Phrases and idioms: at first blush on the first glimpse or impression. spare a person's blushes refrain from causing embarrassment esp. by praise. Etymology: ME f. OE blyscan

Webster's 1913 Dictionary

Blush Blush (bl[u^]sh) v. i. [imp. & p. p. Blushed (bl[u^]sht); p. pr. & vb. n. Blushing.] [OE. bluschen to shine, look, turn red, AS. blyscan to glow; akin to blysa a torch, [=a]bl[=y]sian to blush, D. blozen, Dan. blusse to blaze, blush.] 1. 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. --Milton. In the presence of the shameless and unblushing, the young offender is ashamed to blush. --Buckminster. He would stroke The head of modest and ingenuous worth, That blushed at its own praise. --Cowper. 2. 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. --Shak. 3. To have a warm and delicate color, as some roses and other flowers. Full many a flower is born to blush unseen. --T. Gray.

Webster's 1913 Dictionary

Blush Blush, v. t. 1. To suffuse with a blush; to redden; to make roseate. [Obs.] To blush and beautify the cheek again. --Shak. 2. To express or make known by blushing. I'll blush you thanks. --Shak.

Webster's 1913 Dictionary

Blush Blush, n. 1. A suffusion of the cheeks or face with red, as from a sense of shame, confusion, or modesty. The rosy blush of love. --Trumbull. 2. A red or reddish color; a rosy tint. Light's last blushes tinged the distant hills. --Lyttleton. 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.'' --Hakluyt. 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. --Locke. To put to the blush, to cause to blush with shame; to put to shame.

Collin's Cobuild Dictionary

(blushes, blushing, blushed) When you blush, your face becomes redder than usual because you are ashamed or embarrassed. 'Hello, Maria,' he said, and she blushed again... I blushed scarlet at my stupidity. VERB: V, V colour • Blush is also a noun. 'The most important thing is to be honest,' she says, without the trace of a blush. N-COUNT

Soule's Dictionary of English Synonyms

I. v. n. Redden (in the cheeks), color. II. n. Reddening (of the cheeks), suffusion of the face.

Foolish Dictionary

A temporary erythema and calorific effulgence of the physiognomy, aeteologized by the perceptiveness of the sensorium, in a predicament of inequilibrity, from a sense of shame, anger or other cause, eventuating in a paresis of the vase-motorial, muscular filaments of the facial capillaries, whereby, being divested of their elasticity, they become suffused with a radiance emanating from an intimidated praecordia.

Moby Thesaurus

be guilty, blanch, bloom, blossom, blushing, change color, color, color up, coloring, crimson, crimsoning, darken, fieriness, flame, flush, flushing, glow, grow red, healthy glow, hectic, hectic flush, incandescence, look black, look guilty, mantle, mantling, pale, pink, pudency, pudicity, redden, reddening, redness, rose, rosiness, rouge, rubefacient, rubescence, rufescence, squirm with self-consciousness, stammer, suffusion, turn color, turn pale, turn red, warm color, warmth, warmth of color, whiten, whiteness