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blemish

noun
/ˈblɛmɪʃ/

Etymology

From Middle English blemisshen, blemissen, from Old French blemiss-, stem of Old French blemir, blesmir (“make pale, injure, wound, bruise”) (French blêmir), from Old Frankish *blesmijan, *blasmijan (“to make pale”), from Old Frankish *blasmī (“pale”), from Proto-Germanic *blasaz (“white, pale”), from Proto-Indo-European *bʰel- (“to shine”). Cognate with Dutch bles (“white spot”), German blass (“pale”), Old English āblered (“bare, uncovered, bald, shaven”).

  1. derived from *bʰel-✻ — “to shine”
  2. derived from *blasaz✻ — “white, pale”
  3. derived from *blasmī✻ — “pale”
  4. derived from *blesmijan✻
  5. derived from blemir
  6. inherited from blemisshen

Definitions

  1. A small flaw which spoils the appearance of something, a stain, a spot.

    • Ye shall offer at your own will a male without blemish, of the beeves, of the sheep, or of the goats.
    • Any foot shape deviating from this model is conceived as a blemish, and the animal is unclean.
    • There are a very large number of types of blemish and the smallest blemish visible to a human can be surprisingly small, for example less than 10μm deep, which may be on the surface of a heavily embossed tile.

  2. A moral defect

    A moral defect; a character flaw.

    • As piety is the peculiar ornament of old people, so the want of it is a peculiar blemish in their character.
    • The processes of categorization, stereotyping, discrimination, and self-fulfilling prophecy can also apply to stigmas based on blemishes of individual character.
    • There is no reason to think that the enlivening possible blemish was his hypocritical show of repentance, since there are so many other candidate blemishes to choose among.

  3. To spoil the appearance of.

    • we see ordinarie examples by this licence which wonderfully blemisheth the authoritie and lustre of our law, never to stay upon one sentence, but to run from one to another judge, to decide one same case.
    • Generally, varieties in current use for processing are resilient, if not wholly resistant to blemishing diseases and disorders.
    • I mean it reaches a point of ridiculousness in some regards, and one′s seen actually many good schemes here in San Francisco, for example, that have been blemished by an overly strict adherence to codes.
  4. ›+ 1 more definition

    1. To tarnish (reputation, character, etc.)

      To tarnish (reputation, character, etc.); to defame.

      • There had nothing passed betwixt us that might blemish reputation.

The neighborhood

Derived

blemishable, blemisher, unblemishing

Vish — recursive loop

A definitional loop anchored at blemish. Each word in the ring is defined by the next; follow the chain far enough and it folds back on itself. Scroll to it and watch.

01blemish02spoil03rob04unjustly05unjust06fair07clean08blemishes

A definitional loop anchored at blemish. Each word in the ring appears in the definition of the next; follow the chain far enough and it folds back on itself.

8 hops · closes at blemish

curated · pre-corpus. live cycle detection across the full graph is the next major milestone.

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