Where does black and blue come from?

It is traced to Middle English.

black and blue

Word Rarity Uncommon

Frequency: Zipf frequency 4.96 in modern English

Syllables: black- and blue
IPA

Scrabble Score

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Unique Chars

Meaning

adj

Of a person, having obvious bruises of the skin, typically from falling or being hit or punched.

Colloquial

verb

To bruise, to strike (a person in such a way as to discolour the skin without breaking it).

Colloquial; Slang

Example Sentences

"My arm is still black and blue from slipping on the ice yesterday."
"The whole benighted, blooming crew, The Puddin'-thieves, the Usher too, Are being beaten black and blue With bottles on the pate."
"... he black-and-blued her eyes he cooked a big meal to make it up to her. He went out and stole a neighbor's hog or caught some rice birds ... This was a country of rice plantations, but Twig and Peggy lived upriver, where rice[…]"
"Come on through I black and blue your whole crew Then I get Rudy with the Hong Kong Phoo'"

Etymology

From Middle English blak and blo, blac and bla (“very dark, bruised”), equivalent to black + and + blow (dialectal term for blue). By surface analysis, black + and + blue.

Origin

Source language: Middle English

Word Breakdown

Root: blak and blo

Usage

Inflected Forms

black-and-blue (alternative, attributive) black and blues (present, singular) black and blueing (participle, present) black and bluing (participle, present) black and blued (participle, past) black and blued (past)