Word Direct Answers

What does "blush" mean?

Blush: 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.

Additional senses

  1. 2.To have a warm and delicate color, as some roses and other flowers. Full many a flower is born to blush unseen. T. Gray.
  2. 3.To suffuse with a blush; to redden; to make roseate. [Obs.] To blush and beautify the cheek again. Shak.
  3. 4.To express or make known by blushing. I'll blush you thanks. Shak.
  4. 5.A suffusion of the cheeks or face with red, as from a sense of shame, confusion, or modesty. The rosy blush of love. Trumbull.
  5. 6.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. Note: 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.

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