unblue

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English

Etymology

un- +‎ blue

Adjective

unblue (not comparable)

  1. (rare outside philosophy) Not blue.
    • 1992, Susan Burmeister-Brown, Linda Davies, editors, Glimmer Train Stories:
      [] a god in an unblue sky.
    • 1997, University of Arizona Dept. of English, Sonora Review:
      Soon an associational chain reaction occurs that stains blue all that has remained unblue...
    • 2000, Charles Travis, Unshadowed thought: representation in thought and language:
      A philosopher, busily sorting the world into the blue and the unblue, tells us that some ink is blue. We look at the ink one way, and it looks blue.
    • 2007, Barbara Blackman, Bryony Cosgrove, Judith Wright, Portrait of a friendship:
      Mind you, if they fly in downstairs, they are quite happy to settle for unblue mangoes.

Verb

unblue (third-person singular simple present unblues, present participle unblueing or unbluing, simple past and past participle unblued)

  1. (intransitive, rare, chiefly poetic) To cease being blue.
    • 2006, Honor Moore, Red Shoes: Poems, →ISBN, page 26:
      Blue at some distances unblues, []
    • 2007, Barry Hannah, Yonder Stands Your Orphan, →ISBN, page 18:
      The boy was very hurt in the throat and his face was only now unbluing.
  2. (transitive, rare, chiefly poetic) To cause (something) to cease being blue; to make (something) not blue.
    • 1987, Indiana Review, number 10, page 24:
      [] to clothe bodies surprised by bullets, to unblue hands frozen in ditches, []
    • 2010, Ron Dakron, Newt, →ISBN, page 26:
      They look like iced teeth where a storm unblues them.