azure, asure, assure, asur (z=zh)

& 8 (The first syllable of the word is occasionally pronounced ā). [In Fr., Welsh, Prov., and O. Sp. azur; Ital. azzurro, azzuolo; Sp. azur, azul Port. azul; from Pers. lájawardi, lajuwardi = blue, azure; lája ward, lajuward = lapis lazuli, the second word in which is the Persian one altered. From Arab. azul = heaven.] [AZURINE, AZURITE, AZURN.] IMG:content-0966.png:[blocks in formation] 3. Of some eyes, and specially of Minerva's. "Minerva, graceful with her azure eyes." Pope: Homer's Ody ey, bk. i., 56. 4. Of sea-godde es. "Leucothoe saw, and pity touched her breast (Herself a mortal once of Cadmus' strain, But now an azure sister of the main)." Pope: Homer's Ody ey, bk. v., 425-7. B. As substantive: I. Ordinary Language: 1. The colour of the sky, soft or pale blue. "Gold and seluer he seis and asur for so the." Joseph of Arimathie (ed. Skeat), 195. if our hypothetical shell were lifted to twice the height of Mont Blanc above the earth's surface, we should still have the azure overhead."-Tyndall: Frag of Science, 3rd ed., vii. 152-3, 2. The vault of heaven, so called from its soft blue colour. "Up to the lights above us, in the azure, Which are so beautiful."-Byron: Cain, 1. 1. II. Her .: Bright blue. Used especially in describing the escutcheons of gentlemen beneath the degree of barons. The same colour on a nobleman's coat is called sapphire, from the stone, and that on the coat of a sovereign prince Jupiter, from the planet of that name. Engravers conventionally represent azure, AZURE or asure as it is sometimes spelled in heraldry, by horizontal lines. ( Glo ographía Nova, .) "Foles in foler flakerande bitwene. And al in asure and ynde enaumayld ryche." Ear. Eng. Alluer. Poems (ed. Morris); Cleanne , 1,410-11 azure-eyed, a. Having eyes of an azure colour, or what may be poetically described as such. "Fair-haired, azure-eyed, with delicate Saxon com- plexion." Long fellow: Courtship of Miles Standish, L azure - pencilled, a. Pencilled with azure, with radiations of an azure hue. "And where profuse the wood-veitch clings Round ash and elm, in verdant rings, Its pale and azure - pencilled flower Should canopy Titania's bower." Scott: Rokeby, iv. 2