Blush Meaning
/ˈblʌʃ/Definition, CEFR level B1, pronunciation, examples, and quiz.
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Definition
nounAn act of blushing; a pink or red glow on the face caused by embarrassment, shame, shyness, love, etc.
nounA glow; a flush of colour, especially pink or red.
Sentence Examples
I blush for your mistake.
I blush for you.
I blush to think of what a fool I was then.
CEFR Practice Quiz
Her fair skin made her ____ easily when she felt embarrassed.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
The shy young girl began to ____ when everyone looked at her today.
Word Origin & History
From Middle English blusshen, bluschen, blusschen, blisshen, from Old English blysċan (“to be red; shine”), perhaps from Proto-Germanic *blaskijaną, from *blasǭ (“burning candle; torch”) or alternatively from Proto-Germanic *bluskijaną, from *blusjǭ (“torch”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *bʰel-. Cognate with Middle Low German blöschen (“to blush”). Compare also Old English blysian (“to burn; blaze”), Dutch blozen (“to blush”), Danish blusse (“to blush”), Old Norse blys (“torch”), Danish blus (“blaze”).
Literary Quotations & Historical Citations
"Why, Warwick, canst thou speak against thy liege,
Whom thou obeyed’st thirty and six years,
And not bewray thy treason with a blush?"
— c. 1591–1592 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Third Part of Henry the Sixt, […]”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act III, scene iii]:
"[…] when he perceived her industriously avoiding any explanation, he was contented to remain in ignorance, the rather as he was not without suspicion that there were some circumstances which must have raised her blushes, had she related the whole truth."
— 1749, Henry Fielding, The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling, volume (please specify |volume=I to VI), London: A[ndrew] Millar, […], →OCLC, book VII:
"Their eyes instantly met, and the cheeks of each were overspread with the deepest blush."
— 1813 January 27, [Jane Austen], chapter I, in Pride and Prejudice: […], volume III, London: […] [George Sidney] for T[homas] Egerton, […], →OCLC:
"It was a sudden revelation, a tinge like a blush which one tried to check and then, as it spread, one yielded to its expansion […]"
— 1925 May 14, Virginia Woolf, Mrs. Dalloway, London: Leonard and Virginia Woolf at The Hogarth Press, →OCLC:
"And now the rosy blush of morn began to mantle in the east, and soon the rising sun, emerging from amidst golden and purple clouds, shed his blithesome rays on the tin weathercocks of Communipaw."
— 1809, Diedrich Knickerbocker [pseudonym; Washington Irving], A History of New York, from the Beginning of the World to the End of the Dutch Dynasty. […], volume (please specify |volume=I or II), New York, N.Y.: Inskeep & Bradford, […], →OCLC:
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CEFR Practice Quiz
Her fair skin made her ____ easily when she felt embarrassed.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
The shy young girl began to ____ when everyone looked at her today.