[Appears first in 17th c.; no corresponding form occurs in OE. or ME. But clearly identical with ON. blesi ‘white star on a horse’s forehead,’ MDu. blesse, Du. bles, mod.G. blässe, blesse, all in same sense, from stem blas-, blaz- shining, white; cf. OHG. blass whitish, MHG. blas bald, mod.G. blasz pale. It is possible that the ON. word was adopted in north. dial., and thence passed at a later date into general use; but the Du. or LG. form may also have been introduced as a technical term c. 1600.
(In either case the spelling has to be explained: the regular repr. of ON. blesi would have been blese, bleeze; if this occurred in north dial., it would be identical with the northern form of BLAZE1, and might, like it, be made blaze in the literary language; if adapted from Du. or LG., blaze must be a phonetic spelling.)]
1. A white spot on the face of a horse or ox.
1639. T. de Grey, Compl. Horsem., 23. If the blaze be not too broad.
1650. Fuller, Pisgah, IV. vii. 128. A black bull … with a fair square blaze in his forehead.
1685. Lond. Gaz., No. 2030/4. A black Mare about 12 or 13 hands high, having a Blaze in her right Eye.
1858. Hughes, Scour. White Horse, 17. If it wasn’t for the blaze in her face, and the white feet.
1884. Blackw. Mag., Aug., 170/2. Herefords with great ‘blazes’ of white on their honest faces.
2. transf. A white mark made on a tree, generally by chipping off a slice of bark, to indicate a path or boundary in a forest; also a track indicated by a line of such marks. (First in U.S.)
1737. Wesley, Wks. (1872), I. 68. We then found another blaze and pursued it.
1813. Mary Anne Schimmelpenninck, trans. C. Lancelot’s Tour Alet (1816), I. 123. A little blaze here and there, on particular trees, is the only direction.
1820. Southey, Wesley, I. 123.
1822. De Quincey, Confess. (1862), 243. A blaze of white paint upon a certain elite of the trees marked out by the forester as ripe for the axe.
1830. Galt, Lawrie T., VIII. iii. (1849), 365. We had come to the sixth mile blaize, a boundary mark on a pine.
1885. Pall Mall Gaz., 7 May, 4/2. Tracked by the land surveyor’s blazes on the huge trunks.
