"B" Word Origins

blue screen

Origin

A compound of blue + screen, from the historical film-making technique of using blue backgrounds.

blue-collar

English

From the hard-wearing blue shirts and overalls traditionally worn for manual work, which showed dirt less than white shirts.

Bluebeard

French · 1697

A translation of French Barbe-Bleue, the title character of a 1697 fairy tale by Charles Perrault about a nobleman who murders his wives one after another.

bluebell

Origin

From "blue" + "bell," describing the flower's shape and colour.

blueberry

Origin

From "blue" + "berry," describing the fruit's colour once ripe.

bluebird

Origin

From "blue" + "bird."

bluegrass

Origin

From "blue" + "grass," named for the bluish tint the grass takes on in late spring.

bluejacket

Origin

From blue + jacket.

blueness

Origin

From blue + -ness.

blueprint

Origin · 1842

From "blue" + "print," named after an old photographic reproduction process invented by Sir John Herschel in 1842.

bluer

Origin

From blue + -er (“Oxford -er”). Used at Harrow School in London, United Kingdom.

blues

Origin

From "blue devils," an old term for low spirits or melancholy; the musical genre takes its name from the same mood.

bluescreen

Origin

From blue + screen; derived from "blue screen of death".

bluesy

Origin

From "blues" + "-y."

Bluetooth

Danish · 900

Named after Harald "Bluetooth" Gormsson, a 10th-century king who united Danish tribes, since the technology similarly unites different devices.

Bluey

Origin

From "blue" + "-y."

bluff

German

Probably from Dutch bluffen ("to brag"), related to German verblüffen ("to stump or perplex").

bluish

Origin

From "blue" + "-ish."

Blum

German

From Middle High German bluome, "flower."

Blume

German

* As a German surname, from German Blume. * As a Swedish surname, variant of Blom.

blumpkin

Origin

Portmanteau of blowjob + dump, with added suffix -kin in imitation of pumpkin; also compare words like munchkin and ciderkin.

blunder

Middle English

From Middle English blunderen, ultimately related to Old Norse blunda ("to doze"), suggesting a mistake made through carelessness or inattention.

blunt

Middle English

From Middle English blunt, of uncertain origin, possibly related to Old Norse blunda ("to doze").

blunten

Origin

From blunt + -en (verbal suffix).

bluntly

Origin

From "blunt" + "-ly."

bluntness

Origin

From Middle English bluntnes, bluntnesse, equivalent to blunt + -ness.

blur

Old English

Possibly an alteration of "blear," from Old English roots meaning "to make pale or dim."

blurb

English

An early twentieth-century American coinage, widely credited to the humorist Gelett Burgess, who used it of the gushing praise printed on book jackets.

blurred

Origin

From "blur" + "-ed."

blurry

Origin

From "blur" + "-y."

blurt

Middle English

Possibly imitative in origin, or from a Middle English word meaning to cry out or bellow.

blush

Old English

From Old English blysian ("to be red, to shine"), ultimately related to words for "torch" and "burning."

blusher

Origin

From blush + -er.

bluster

Middle English

From Middle English blusteren, originally meaning "to wander aimlessly," which later picked up the sense "to blow violently" from a Low German relative — the same family as blow and blast.

bly

Origin

Probably a dialect form of blee, an old word for "complexion" or "appearance."

Blythe

Old English

From the Old English adjective blīþe, meaning "merry" or "joyful" — related to the modern word blithe. It also gives its name to several English and American places, including a river in Warwickshire.

BMI

English

An initialism of body mass index.

BMP

English

A shortening of bitmap, the term for an image stored as a grid of individual pixels. It is a contraction rather than an initialism — the letters are not the initials of separate words.

BMS

English

An initialism, standing for different phrases depending on context.

BMW

German

An abbreviation of the German company name Bayerische Motoren Werke, "Bavarian Motor Works."

BMX

Origin · 1970

Short for "bicycle motocross," a sport that began in California in the 1970s.

bo

Origin

Probably a shortening of boy.

boa

Latin

From Latin boa, the name of a large snake described by the Roman writer Pliny. The fluffy scarf was later named after the snake because of its similar shape when worn around the neck.

boar

Old English

From Old English bār, going back to an ancient West Germanic root for the animal.

boarback

Origin

From boar + back, modelled on horseback.

board

Old English

From Old English bord, meaning both "plank" and "table." Senses like "meals" and "committee" developed by association with sitting around a table.

boarding

Origin

By surface analysis, board + -ing.

boards

Origin

See the etymology of the corresponding lemma form.