bluster (bluster)

[Origin obscure. Hardly connected with ME. blusteren, wander about aimle ly, = LG. blustern, blistern, flutter about anxiously; but prob. one of the imitative words attached loosely to what is felt to be the common root of blow1, blast. The E. Fries. blüstern, bluster, freq. of blü en, var. of blasen (= E. Gray, Elegy. blaze2 ), blow, is appar. a parallel formation.] I. in trans. 1. To roar and be tumultuous, as wind; blow boisterously: as, the storm blus ters without. Shak., K. John, v. 5. Full many a flower is born to blush unseen. 5. To be ashamed: with at or for. He blushes for the "disingenuousne of the most devoted worshipper of speculative truth." Whipple, E . and Rev., I. 19. II. trans. 1. To make red. [Rare.] Which [blood]. ne'er return eth To blush and beautify the cheek again. Shak., 2 Hen. VI., iii. 2. 2. To expre , show, or make known by blushing, or by a change of color similar to a blush. [Rare and poetical.] Pa the happy news, Blush it thro' the West. Tennyson, Maud, xvii. blush (blush), n. [ blusch , gleam, glimpse; from the verb.] 1. A gleam. To bide a blisful blusch of the brygt sunne. Sir Gawayne and the Green Knight (ed. Morris), 1. 520. 2. A glance; glimpse; look; view: obsolete except in the phrase at first blush . At the first blush we thought they had beene shippes come from France. Hakluyt's Voyages , III. 336. This sounds, at first blush , very neat, if not even very profound; but a closer examination di olves it into nothing. Bibliotheca Sacra , XLIII. 618. 3. Look; resemblance: as, she has a blush of her father. [North. Eng.] [Hence, collective- ly, an a embly, company, in the isolated ex- ample, a blush of boyes = a company of boys ("Book of St. Albans").] -4. The suffusion of the cheeks or the face with a red color through confusion, shame, diffidence, or the like. If impious acts Have left thee blood enough to make a blush , I'll paint it on thy cheeks. Fletcher , Spanish Curate, iii. 3. Her blush of maiden shame. Bryant , Autumn Woods. 5. A red or reddish color; a rosy tint. And light's last blushes tinged the distant hills. Lord Lyttelton , Uncertainty, i. To put to the blush, to cause to blush or be ashamed. blusher (blush'ėr), n. One who blushes, or is given to blushing. Mulattoes are often great blushers, blush succeeding blush over their faces. Darwin, Expre , of Emotions, p. 320.