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black and blue

adj

Etymology

From Middle English blak and blo, blac and bla (“very dark, bruised”), equivalent to black + and + blow (dialectal term for blue). By surface analysis, black + and + blue.

  1. derived from blak and blo

Definitions

  1. Of a person, having obvious bruises of the skin, typically from falling or being hit or…

    Of a person, having obvious bruises of the skin, typically from falling or being hit or punched.

    • My arm is still black and blue from slipping on the ice yesterday.
    • The whole benighted, blooming crew, The Puddin'-thieves, the Usher too, Are being beaten black and blue With bottles on the pate.

  2. To bruise, to strike (a person in such a way as to discolour the skin without breaking…

    To bruise, to strike (a person in such a way as to discolour the skin without breaking it).

    • ... he black-and-blued her eyes he cooked a big meal to make it up to her. He went out and stole a neighbor's hog or caught some rice birds ... This was a country of rice plantations, but Twig and Peggy lived upriver, where rice[…]
    • Come on through I black and blue your whole crew Then I get Rudy with the Hong Kong Phoo'

The neighborhood

Vish — recursive loop

No curated loop yet for black and blue. Loops are being traced one word at a time while the ingestion pipeline matures.

sense glosses and etymology drawn from English Wiktionary · source · CC-BY-SA