Also 3 blouet. [Strictly two words: 1. a. F. bluette, fem. dim. of bleu, bleue, ‘bluette du Rhin, basse laine d’Allemagne’ (Boiste), in med.L. bluetum, bluettum; 2. a. F. bleuet, bluet, in same sense, masc. dim. of bleu.]
† 1. A kind of woollen cloth of bluish color. Obs.
[a. 1300. Chron. de Mailros, in Gale, Rer. Angl. Script. Vet. (1684), I. 236. Inter suos domesticos contentus erat amictu rosseti, inter majores terræ raro Scarleti, frequenter vero bloueti vel burneti amiciebatur indumento.]
1437. Bury Wills (1850), 10. Item lego Gilberto Skut xxs. et togam meam de bluett furr’.
[1866. Rogers, Agric. & Prices, I. xxii. 575. Bluett is quoted by the yard, and by the pannus or piece.]
2. The Corn Bluebottle (Centaurea Cyanus). Also applied to other blue flowers, as in U. S. to Oldenlandia cærulea, ‘a delicate little herb producing in spring a profusion of light blue flowers fading to white, with a yellowish eye’ (Gray), and to a species of Bilberry (Vaccinium angustifolium).
1727. Bradley, Fam. Dict., Blue-Bottle, or Bluet … grows amongst Wheat and other Corn.
