Webster
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Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary · 1913

Blush

Blush (blŭsh) v. i. [imp. & p. p. Blushed (blŭsht); p. pr. & vb. n. Blushing.] [OE. bluschen to shine, look, turn red, AS. blyscan to glow; akin to blysa a torch, āblȳsian 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.

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.

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. 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.

Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Noah Porter, editor (Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913). Public domain. Text as transcribed by MICRA, Inc., from Project Gutenberg. Changed for Deep Dive Bible: Greek, which our source spelled in Latin letters, set in Greek letters; entries of one spelling merged into one article; Greek words our source left out (shown as “?”), read from the 1898 printing, from the same plates (the Library of Congress’s copy), where the place could be found with certainty. Of the others, 1,362 (a word or a single letter each) were inferred by AI from the context by the dictionary’s own rules and are marked with a wavy underline (tap or point at one to see the note); the rest, which could not be inferred with confidence, are left as “?”.