Dictionary

blake en · ADJ

Pronunciation

• (US) audio
• /bleɪk/

Etymology

Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *bʰel- Proto-Indo-European *bʰleyǵ-der. Proto-Germanic *blaikaz Proto-West Germanic *blaik Old English blāc Middle English blake English blake From Middle English blak, blac (“pale”), from Old English blāc (“pale, pallid, wan, livid; bright, shining, glittering, flashing”) and Old Norse bleikr (“pale; yellow, pink; any non-red warm color”); both from Proto-Germanic *blaikaz (“pale; shining”). Compare Scots bleg (“light, drab”). More at bleak.

Meanings

1. (Northern-England, UK, dialectal, poetic, uncommon) Yellow, as butter or cheese.
   • Noo, that's a bit o' neyce blake butter. Thoo nobbut leeaks blakeish. 1911, Richard Blakeborough, Wit, Character, Folklore & Customs of the North Riding of Yorkshire, page 340:
   • White shows the rye, the big of big of blaker hue,[…] 1747, Josiah Relph, A Miscellany of Poems,: Consisting of Original Poems, Translations, Pastorals in the Cumberland Dialect, Familiar Epistles, Fables, Songs, and Epigrams, page 13:
   • Miss Lizzie's ower dark for my fancy. I mind nowt aboot your dark lasses - as blake as marygowds an' as black as corbies. 1876, Elizabeth Lynn Linton, Lizzie Lorton of Greyrigg: A Novel ..., page 271:
   • […] the E. blake (identical with AS. blac, G. bleich, pale) is provincially used in the sense of yellow. As blake as a paigle, as yellow as a cowslip. 1859, Hensleigh Wedgwood, A Dictionary of English Etymology: A - D, page 184:

Forms

Relateds

pallid