a. Forms: 5 blewyssh, 6 -isshe, 6–8 -ish, 6– bluish, 8– blueish. [f. BLUE a. + -ISH1.] Somewhat blue.
1398. Trevisa, Barth. De P. R., XIX. xix. (1495), 875. The colour is blewe or blewyssh.
1586. Warner, Alb. Eng., IV. (R.). Her snowish necke with blewish vaines.
1712. trans. Pomet’s Hist. Drugs, I. 156. The Toulon Soap shou’d be dry, of a white, tending to a little bluish Colour.
1713. Rowe, Jane Shore, V. Wks. 1792, II. 180. A waving flood of blueish fire.
1860. Tyndall, Glac., II. § 7. 261. Thin milk, when poured upon a black surface, appears bluish.
b. Comb. modifying other colors, as bluish-brown, -green, -purple, -red, white, etc.; also bluish-colo(u)red.
1769. Sir J. Hill, Fam. Herbal (1812), 1. The leaves are of a bluish green.
1792. Gentl. Mag., LXII. I. 113. The capitulum is … bluish brown.
1836. Todd, Cycl. Anat. & Phys., I. 443/2. A bone … exhibits a bluish-grey colour.
1858. W. Ellis, Visits Madagascar, viii. 199. The dark bluish-coloured original limestone.
Hence also Bluishly adv., Bluishness.
1611. Cotgr., Lividité, roannesse, bleakenesse, palenesse, blewishnesse.
1790. Wedgwood, in Phil. Trans., LXXX. 313. The usual bluishness, arising from the iron always found in the common acids.
1875. Howells, Foregone Concl., 4. That transparent blueishness, which comes from much shaving of a heavy black beard.
