Blue

Click hBlue moon. Blue in the face. The blues. True blue. Blue stocking. Blue movies. Blue ribbon. Cursing a blue streak. Blue grass. Blueprints. Blue murder. Blue balls. Blue plate special. A bolt from the blue. Blue suede shoes (remember this one?!). Out of the blue. Bluebeard. Feeling blue. Blue chip. Blue pencil. Blueberries. Bluetooth. Blue collar. Bluesky Social. Blue jeans. Blue blood. Bluenose (a nickname for Nova Scotians since the 17th century). Have you been at a meeting lately in which someone suggested, “Let’s do some blue sky thinking...”?
 
Can you think of words that are as versatile and as widely used in idioms and colloquial language as the word blue? Blue is the basis for dozens of common idioms and phrases covering a wide range of meanings and uses.
 
Ever wondered why blue is associated with boy babies and pink with girl babies? This color coding became predominant in the 20th century. Before that pink (or red) was the boy color and blue was the girl color; that is, if there was any differentiation at all. There is considerable debate about how and when this color-coding shifted.  
 
Where does the word blue come from? The word blue has always been (more or less) blue. The word has not changed much in hundreds (or thousands) of years. Blue comes from Proto-Indo-European (PIE) bhle (blue, light-colored), PIE bhel (to shine), and, later, Proto-Germanic bloewaz, the source of Old Saxon and Old High German blao, Danish blaa, Swedish bla, Old Frisian blau, Middle Dutch bla, Dutch blauw, German blau, and Old English blaw—all meaning blue. Around 1300 the word bleu, meaning the color of the clear sky, arrives in English from Old French bleu.
 
The present spelling, blue, is from the 1500s.
 
Reference: Online Etymological Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com/
Verde, T. (March – April 2021). The quest for blue. Aramcoworld, 72(2), 6 – 15. https://www.aramcoworld.com/Articles/February-2021/The-Quest-for-Blue
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