sb. [As an attributive phrase, with the sense of ‘wearing blue stockings,’ this is found as early as the 17th c. (see 1 a.); in its transferred sense it originated in connection with re-unions held in London about 1750, at the houses of Mrs. Montague, Mrs. Vesey, and Mrs. Ord, who exerted themselves to substitute for the card-playing, which then formed the chief recreation at evening parties, more intellectual modes of spending the time, including conversation on literary subjects, in which eminent men of letters often took part. Many of those who attended eschewed ‘full dress’; one of these was Mr. Benjamin Stillingfleet, who habitually wore grey or ‘blue’ worsted, instead of black silk stockings. In reference to this, Admiral Boscawen is said (Sir W. Forbes, Life of Beattie (1806), I. 210, note) to have derisively dubbed the coterie ‘the Blue Stocking Society’ (as not constituting a dressed assembly). The ladies who supported the reform were at first called Blue Stockingers, Blue Stocking Ladies, and at length, about 1790, when the actual origin of the term was remembered by few, Blue Stockings, in later slang abbreviated to Blues.]
1. attrib. Wearing blue worsted (instead of black silk) stockings; hence, not in full dress, in homely dress. (contemptuous.)
a. Applied to the ‘Little Parliament’ of 1653, with reference to the puritanically plain or mean attire of its members.
a. 1683. Autobiog. Sir J. Bramston (1845), 89–90. That Blew-stocking Parliament, Barebone Parliament, a companie of fellowes called togeather by Cromwell, the armie and councell thereof pickt out for the purpose.
b. Applied depreciatively to the assemblies that met at Montagu House, and those who frequented them or imitated them.
[1757. Mrs. Montague, Lett., in Doran, Lady of Last C. (1873). He [Mr. Stillingfleet] has left off his old friends and his blue stockings.
1780. Mad. D’Arblay, Diary (1842), I. 326. Who would not be a blue stockinger at this rate?]
1791. Boswell, Johnson, viii. 86. These societies were denominated Blue-stocking Clubs.
1885. F. Cuss, E. Barnet, 113. A member of the … Blue Stocking coterie.
c. Hence, Of women: Having or affecting literary tastes; literary, learned.
1804. Edin. Rev., IV. 219. To hear blue-stocking ladies jingle their rhymes.
1824. Macaulay, Misc. Writ. (1860), I. 127. The travelled nobles and the blue stocking matrons of Rome.
2. = Blue Stocking lady: orig. one who frequented Mrs. Montague’s ‘Blue Stocking’ assemblies; thence transferred sneeringly to any woman showing a taste for learning, a literary lady. (Much used by reviewers of the first quarter of the 19th c.; but now, from the general change of opinion on the education of women, nearly abandoned.)
1790. Wolcott (P. Pindar), To Apollo, Wks. 1812, II. 277. I see the band of Blue Stockings arise, Historic, critic, and poetic Dames.
1807. Edin. Rev., X. 192. This would scarcely go down … even among the blue stockings of Montagu house.
1822. Hazlitt, Table-t., II. vii. 168. I have an utter aversion to blue-stockings. I do not care a fig for any woman that knows even what an author means.
1858. De Quincey, Autobiog. Sk., Wks. 1862, I. xiii. 353, note. The order of ladies called Bluestockings, by way of reproach, has become totally extinct amongst us.
b. attrib.
1832. Edin. Rev., LV. 521. A blue-stocking contempt for household cares.
a. 1859. De Quincey, Wks. (1863), II. 133. A blue-stocking loquacity.
3. ‘The American Avocet (Recurvirostra americana). A common bird in the Northern states.’ Bartlett, Dict. Amer.
Hence (from sense 2) Blue-stocking v. (nonce-wd.), Blue-stocking’d a., † Blue-stockinger (see above in 1 b), Blue-stockingish a., Blue-stockingism, Blue-stockingship.
1784. H. Walpole, Corr. (1833), IV. 381. [To Hannah More] When will you blue-stocking yourself, and come amongst us?
1818. Blackw. Mag., III. 286. The tawdry blue-stockingship of a young lady from the manufacturing district. Ibid. (1820), VIII. 99. Blue-stockingism was in its cerulean altitude.
c. 1822. J. Wilson, in Byron’s Wks. (1846), 232/2, note. The women … are blue-stockingish.
1824. Scott, St. Ronan’s, xxxii. That d——d, vindictive, blue-stocking’d wild cat.
1858. De Quincey, Autobiog. Sk., Wks. 1862, II. v. 316. The utter want of pretension, and of all that looks like Bluestockingism, in the style of her habitual conversation.
