blush
/ˈblʌʃ/
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: 3.56 in modern English
10
Scrabble Score
5
Letters
1
Syllables
5
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
An act of blushing; a pink or red glow on the face caused by embarrassment, shame, shyness, love, etc.
Countable; Uncountable
verb
To become red or pink in the face (and sometimes experience an associated feeling of warmth), especially due to shyness, love, shame, excitement, or embarrassment.
Intransitive verb
Example Sentences
- "Why, Warwick, canst thou speak against thy liege, Whom thou obeyed’st thirty and six years, And not bewray thy treason with a blush?"
- "[…] when he perceived her industriously avoiding any explanation, he was contented to remain in ignorance, the rather as he was not without suspicion that there were some circumstances which must have raised her blushes, had she related the whole truth."
- "Their eyes instantly met, and the cheeks of each were overspread with the deepest blush."
- "It was a sudden revelation, a tinge like a blush which one tried to check and then, as it spread, one yielded to its expansion […]"
- "And now the rosy blush of morn began to mantle in the east, and soon the rising sun, emerging from amidst golden and purple clouds, shed his blithesome rays on the tin weathercocks of Communipaw."
- "Each painting consists of a white aluminum disk, sprayed at the edges with a subtle blush of blue, pink or grey."
Etymology
From Middle English blusshen, bluschen, blusschen, blisshen, from Old English blysċan (“to be red; shine”), perhaps from Proto-Germanic *blaskijaną, from *blasǭ (“burning candle; torch”) or alternatively from Proto-Germanic *bluskijaną, from *blusjǭ (“torch”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *bʰel-. Cognate with Middle Low German blöschen (“to blush”). Compare also Old English blysian (“to burn; blaze”), Dutch blozen (“to blush”), Danish blusse (“to blush”), Old Norse blys (“torch”), Danish blus (“blaze”).
Origin
Word Breakdown
- Root: blusshen, blysċan, *blaskijaną, *bluskijaną, *bʰel-