blue curls

Webster's Dictionary (GCIDE)

1.A ringlet, especially of hair; anything of a spiral or winding form. [1913 Webster]

Under a coronet, his flowing hair In curls on either cheek played.— Milton.[1913 Webster]

2.An undulating or waving line or streak in any substance, as wood, glass, etc.; flexure; sinuosity. [1913 Webster]

If the glass of the prisms . . . be without those numberless waves or curls which usually arise from the sand holes.— Sir I. Newton.[1913 Webster]

3.A disease in potatoes, in which the leaves, at their first appearance, seem curled and shrunken. [1913 Webster]

Blue curls. (Bot.) See under Blue. [1913 Webster]

1.Having the color of the clear sky, or a hue resembling it, whether lighter or darker; as, the deep, blue sea; as blue as a sapphire; blue violets. "The blue firmament." --Milton. [1913 Webster]

2.Pale, without redness or glare, -- said of a flame; hence, of the color of burning brimstone, betokening the presence of ghosts or devils; as, the candle burns blue; the air was blue with oaths. [1913 Webster]

3.Low in spirits; melancholy; as, to feel blue. [1913 Webster]

4.Suited to produce low spirits; gloomy in prospect; as, thongs looked blue. [Colloq.] [1913 Webster]

5.Severe or over strict in morals; gloom; as, blue and sour religionists; suiting one who is over strict in morals; inculcating an impracticable, severe, or gloomy mortality; as, blue laws. [1913 Webster]

6.Literary; -- applied to women; -- an abbreviation of bluestocking. [Colloq.] [1913 Webster]

The ladies were very blue and well informed.— Thackeray.[1913 Webster]

Blue asbestus. See Crocidolite.

Blue black, of, or having, a very dark blue color, almost black.

Blue blood. See under Blood.

Blue buck (Zool.), a small South African antelope (Cephalophus pygm[ae]us); also applied to a larger species ([AE]goceras leucoph[ae]us); the blaubok.

Blue cod (Zool.), the buffalo cod.

Blue crab (Zool.), the common edible crab of the Atlantic coast of the United States (Callinectes hastatus).

Blue curls (Bot.), a common plant (Trichostema dichotomum), resembling pennyroyal, and hence called also bastard pennyroyal.

Blue devils, apparitions supposed to be seen by persons suffering with delirium tremens; hence, very low spirits. "Can Gumbo shut the hall door upon blue devils, or lay them all in a red sea of claret?" --Thackeray.

Blue gage. See under Gage, a plum.

Blue gum, an Australian myrtaceous tree (Eucalyptus globulus), of the loftiest proportions, now cultivated in tropical and warm temperate regions for its timber, and as a protection against malaria. The essential oil is beginning to be used in medicine. The timber is very useful. See Eucalyptus.

Blue jack, Blue stone, blue vitriol; sulphate of copper.

Blue jacket, a man-of war's man; a sailor wearing a naval uniform.

Blue jaundice. See under Jaundice.

Blue laws, a name first used in the eighteenth century to describe certain supposititious laws of extreme rigor reported to have been enacted in New Haven; hence, any puritanical laws. [U. S.]

Blue light, a composition which burns with a brilliant blue flame; -- used in pyrotechnics and as a night signal at sea, and in military operations.

Blue mantle (Her.), one of the four pursuivants of the English college of arms; -- so called from the color of his official robes.

Blue mass, a preparation of mercury from which is formed the blue pill. --McElrath.

Blue mold or Blue mould, the blue fungus (Aspergillus glaucus) which grows on cheese. --Brande & C.

Blue Monday, (a) a Monday following a Sunday of dissipation, or itself given to dissipation (as the Monday before Lent). (b) a Monday considered as depressing because it is a workday in contrast to the relaxation of the weekend.

Blue ointment (Med.), mercurial ointment.

Blue Peter (British Marine), a blue flag with a white square in the center, used as a signal for sailing, to recall boats, etc. It is a corruption of blue repeater, one of the British signal flags.

Blue pill. (Med.) (a) A pill of prepared mercury, used as an aperient, etc. (b) Blue mass.

Blue ribbon. (a) The ribbon worn by members of the order of the Garter; -- hence, a member of that order. (b) Anything the attainment of which is an object of great ambition; a distinction; a prize. "These [scholarships] were the --blue ribbon of the college." --Farrar. (c) The distinctive badge of certain temperance or total abstinence organizations, as of the --Blue ribbon Army.

Blue ruin, utter ruin; also, gin. [Eng. Slang] --Carlyle.

Blue spar (Min.), azure spar; lazulite. See Lazulite.

Blue thrush (Zool.), a European and Asiatic thrush (Petrocossyphus cyaneas).

Blue verditer. See Verditer.

Blue vitriol (Chem.), sulphate of copper, a violet blue crystallized salt, used in electric batteries, calico printing, etc.

Blue water, the open ocean.

Big Blue, the International Business Machines corporation. [Wall Street slang.] PJC

To look blue, to look disheartened or dejected.

True blue, genuine and thorough; not modified, nor mixed; not spurious; specifically, of uncompromising Presbyterianism, blue being the color adopted by the Covenanters. [1913 Webster]

For his religion . . . 'T was Presbyterian, true blue.— Hudibras.[1913 Webster]