blaze

See also: Blaze

English

Pronunciation

  • IPA(key): /bleɪz/
  • Audio (US)(file)
  • Rhymes: -eɪz

Etymology 1

From Middle English blase, from Old English blæse, blase (“firebrand, torch, lamp, flame”), from Proto-Germanic *blasǭ (“torch”), from Proto-Indo-European *bʰel- (“to shine, be white”). Cognate with Low German blas (“burning candle, torch, fire”), Middle High German blas (“candle, torch, flame”). Compare Dutch bles (“blaze”), German Blesse (“blaze, mark on an animal's forehead”), Swedish bläs (“blaze”).

Noun

blaze (plural blazes)

  1. A fire, especially a fast-burning fire producing a lot of flames and light.
    • 1907, Robert William Chambers, chapter III, in The Younger Set (Project Gutenberg; EBook #14852), New York, N.Y.: D. Appleton & Company, published 1 February 2005 (Project Gutenberg version), OCLC 24962326:
      Long after his cigar burnt bitter, he sat with eyes fixed on the blaze. When the flames at last began to flicker and subside, his lids fluttered, then drooped; but he had lost all reckoning of time when he opened them again to find Miss Erroll in furs and ball-gown kneeling on the hearth and heaping kindling on the coals, […].
  2. Intense, direct light accompanied with heat.
    to seek shelter from the blaze of the sun
    • John Milton (1608-1674)
      O dark, dark, dark, amid the blaze of noon!
  3. The white or lighter-coloured markings on a horse's face.
    The palomino had a white blaze on its face.
  4. A high-visibility orange colour, typically used in warning signs and hunters' clothing.
  5. A bursting out, or active display of any quality; an outburst.
  6. A spot made on trees by chipping off a piece of the bark, usually as a surveyor's mark.
    • Robert Carlton (B. R. Hall, 1798-1863)
      Three blazes in a perpendicular line on the same tree indicating a legislative road, the single blaze a settlement or neighbourhood road.
Translations

Etymology 2

From Middle English blasen, from Middle English blase (“torch”). See above.

Verb

blaze (third-person singular simple present blazes, present participle blazing, simple past and past participle blazed)

  1. (intransitive) To be on fire, especially producing a lot of flames and light.
    The campfire blazed merrily.
  2. (intransitive) To shine like a flame.
    • William Wordsworth
      And far and wide the icy summit blazed.
    • 1913, Joseph C. Lincoln, chapter 1, in Mr. Pratt's Patients:
      Pretty soon I struck into a sort of path […]. It twisted and turned, […] and opened out into a big clear space like a lawn. And, back of the lawn, was a big, old-fashioned house, with piazzas stretching in front of it, and all blazing with lights.
  3. (transitive) To make a thing shine like a flame.
  4. (transitive) To mark or cut (a route, especially through vegetation), or figuratively, to set a precedent for the taking-on of a challenge.
    The guide blazed his way through the undergrowth.
    Darwin blazed a path for the rest of us.
  5. (slang) To smoke marijuana.
Translations

Etymology 3

From Middle English blasen (“to blow”), from Old English *blǣsan, from Proto-Germanic *blēsaną (“to blow”). Related to English blast.

Verb

blaze (third-person singular simple present blazes, present participle blazing, simple past and past participle blazed)

  1. (transitive) To blow, as from a trumpet
  2. (transitive) To publish; announce publicly
  3. (transitive) To disclose; bewray; defame
  4. (transitive, heraldry) To blazon

Noun

blaze (plural blazes)

  1. Publication; the act of spreading widely by report

References

  • blaze in The Century Dictionary, The Century Co., New York, 1911

Anagrams

Czech

Etymology

From blahý +‎ -e.

Pronunciation

  • IPA(key): [ˈblazɛ]
  • Rhymes: -azɛ
  • Hyphenation: bla‧ze

Adverb

blaze (comparative blažeji, superlative nejblažeji)

  1. blissfully, happily
    • 1868, Emanuel František Züngel, “Triolet”, in Básně‎, page 20–21:
      Pak budu zas tiše, blaze žíti,
      zapomenuv na to, co mne hnětlo;
      mír a pokoj budu v duši míti.

Further reading

  • blaze in Příruční slovník jazyka českého, 1935–1957
  • blaze in Slovník spisovného jazyka českého, 1960–1971, 1989

Dutch

Pronunciation

  • IPA(key): [ˈblaːzə]
  • Audio(file)

Verb

blaze

  1. (archaic) singular present subjunctive of blazen

Anagrams

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