Emily Dickinson Lexicon

BLOT, n.

1. A spot or stain on paper, usually applied to ink.
2. An obliteration of something written or printed. – Dryden.
3. A spot in reputation; a stain; a disgrace; a reproach; a blemish. – Shak.
4. Censure; scorn; reproach. He that rebuketh the wicked getteth a blot. – Prov. ix.
5. In backgammon, when a single man lies open to be taken up. – Johnson.

BLOT, v.t. [Goth. blauthjan; Sw. plottra; Dan. plet, a spot, stain, blot; pletter, to blot or stain; L. litura, whence lituro, oblitero, without the prefix; and D. kladdan, with a different one.]

1. To spot with ink; to stain or bespatter with ink; as, to blot a paper.
2. To obliterate writing or letters with ink, so as to render the characters invisible, or not distinguishable; generally with out; as, to blot out a word or a sentence.
3. To efface; to erase; to cause to be unseen, or forgotten to destroy; as, to blot out a crime, or the remembrance of any thing.
4. To stain with infamy; to tarnish; to disgrace; to disfigure. Blot not thy innocence with guiltless blood. – Rowe.
5. To darken. He sung how earth blots the moon's gilded wane. – Cowley.
6. In Scripture, to blot one out of the book of life, is to reject him from the number of those who are to be saved. To blot out a name, a person or a nation, is to destroy the person or nation; to exterminate or consume. To blot out sins, is to forgive them. Sins are compared to debts, which are recorded in God's book of remembrance, and when paid, are crossed or canceled.

BLOTCH, n. [Sax. blæctha, a scab or leprous affection.]

A pustule upon the skin; an eruption, usually of a large kind.

BLOTCH, v.t.

To blacken. – Harmar.

BLOTE, v.t. [The affinities of this word are not clearly ascertained. In Sax. blotan is to sacrifice, in Goth. to serve or worship; in Arm. bloda is to soften; W. plyz, soft; plyzaw, to soften; Dan. blöder, Sw. blöta, to soften.]

To dry and smoke; as, to blote herrings.

BLOT'ED, pp.

Smoked and dried.

BLOT'TED, pp.

Stained; spotted; erased.

BLOT'TER, n.

In counting houses, a waste book.

BLOT'TING, ppr.

Spotting with ink; obliterating; staining.

BLOT'TING-LY, adv.

By blotting.

BLOW, n.

1. A flower; a blossom. This word is in general use in the United States, and legitimate. In the Tatler, it is used for blossoms in general, as we use blowth.
2. Among seamen, a gale of wind. This also is a legitimate word, in general use in the United States.

BLOW, n. [This probably is a contracted word, and the primary sense must be, to strike, thrust, push, or throw, that is, to drive. I have not found it in the cognate dialects. If g or other palatal letter is lost, it corresponds in elements with the L. plaga, Gr. πληγη, L. fligo, Eng. flog. But blow, a stroke, is written like the verb to blow, the Latin flo, and blow, to blossom. The letter lost is probably a dental, and the original was blod or bloth, in which case, the word has the elements of loud, laudo, clauda, lad, &c.]

1. The act of striking; more generally the stroke; a violent application of the hand, fist, or an instrument to an object.
2. The fatal stroke; a stroke that kills; hence, death.
3. An act of hostility; as, the nation which strikes the first blow. Hence, to come to blows, is to engage in combat, whether by individuals, armies, fleets, or nations; and when by nations, it is war.
4. A sudden calamity; a sudden or severe evil. In like manner, plaga in Latin gives rise to the Eng. plague.
5. A single act; a sudden event; as, to gain or lose a province at a blow, or by one blow. At a stroke is used in like manner.
6. An ovum or egg deposited by a fly, on flesh or other substance, called a fly-blow.

BLOW, v.i. [pret. blew; pp. blown. Sax. blawen, blowan, to blow as wind; blowan, to blossom or blow, as a flower; D. bloeyen, to blossom; G. blähen, to swell or inflate; L. flo, to blow. This word, probably is from the same root as bloom, blossom, blow, a flower; W. bloden. See Blossom.]

1. To make a current of air; to move as air; as, the wind blows. Often used with it; as, it blows a gale.
2. To pant; to puff; to breathe hard or quick. Here is Mrs. Page at the door, sweating and blowing. – Shak.
3. To breathe; as, to blow hot and cold. – L'Estrange.
4. To sound with being blown, as a horn or trumpet. – Milton.
5. To flower; to blossom; to bloom; as plants. How blows the citron grove. – Milton. To blow over, to pass away without effect; to cease or be dissipated; as, the storm or the clouds are blown over. To blow up, to rise in the air; also, to be broken and scattered by the explosion of gunpowder.

BLOW, v.t.

1. To throw or drive a current of air upon; as, to blow the fire; also, to fan.
2. To drive by a current of air; to impel; as, the tempest blew the ship ashore.
3. To breathe upon, for the purpose of warming; as, to blow the fingers in a cold day. – Shak.
4. To sound a wind instrument; as, blow the trumpet.
5. To spread by report. And through the court his courtesy was blown. – Dryden.
6. To deposit eggs, as flies.
7. To form bubbles by blowing.
8. To swell and inflate, as veal; a practice of butchers.
9. To form glass into a particular shape by the breath, as in glass manufactories.
10. To melt tin, after being first burnt to destroy the mundic. – Encyc. To blow away, to dissipate; to scatter with wind. To blow down, to prostrate by wind. To blow off, to shake down by wind, as to blow off fruit from trees; to drive from land, as to blow off a ship. To blow out, to extinguish by a current of air, as a candle. To blow up, to till with air; to swell; as, to blow up a bladder or a bubble. #2. To inflate; to puff up; as, to blow up one with flattery. #3. To kindle; as, to blow up a contention. #4. To burst, to raise into the air, or to scatter, by the explosion of gunpowder. Figuratively, to scatter or bring to naught suddenly; as, to blow up a scheme. To blow upon, to make stale; as, to blow upon an author's works. – Addison.

BLOW'BALL, n. [blow and ball.]

The flower of the dandelion. – B. Jonson.

BLOW'ER, n.

1. One who blows; one who is employed in melting tin.
2. A plate of iron or tin used to increase the current of air in a chimney.

BLOW'ING, n.

The motion of wind or net of blowing.

BLOW'ING, ppr.

Making a current of air; breathing quick; sounding a wind instrument; inflating; impelling by wind; melting tin.

BLOWN, pp.

Driven by wind; fanned; sounded by blowing; spread by report; swelled; inflated; expanded, as a blossom.

BLOW'PIPE, n. [blow and pipe.]

An instrument by which a blast or current of air is driven through the flame of a lamp or candle, and that flame directed upon a mineral substance, to fuse or vitrify it. Blow-pipe of the artist, a conical tube of brass, glass or other substance, usually a quarter of an inch in diameter at one end, and capillary or nearly so at the other, where it is bent nearly to a right angle. This is used to propel a jet of air from the lungs, through the flame of a lamp or candle, upon the substance to be fused. Blow-pipe of the mineralogist, the same instrument substantially as the foregoing, but usually fitted with an ivory or silver mouth-piece, and with several movable jets to produce flames of different sizes. Its office is to produce instantly a furnace heat, on minute fragments of mineral substances, supported on charcoal, by platina forceps, &c. Compound blow-pipe of Dr. Hare, invented in 1801, an instrument in which oxygen and hydrogen, propelled by hydrostatic or other pressure, coming from separate reservoirs, in the proportions requisite to form water, are made to unite in a capillary orifice, at the moment when they are kindled. The heat produced, when the focus is formed on charcoal or any non-conducting substance, is such as to melt every thing but the diamond, to burn the metals, and to dissipate in vapor, or in gaseous forms, most known substances. The blow-pipe of Newman, Clarke, &c., is the compound blow-pipe of Dr. Hare, with some unimportant modifications. – Silliman.

BLOW'POINT, n. [blow and point.]

A kind of play among children. – Johnson.

BLOWTH, n. [Ir. blath, blaith, a flower or blossom; D. bloeizel; Ger. blüthe.]

Bloom, or blossom, or that which is expanded. It signifies bloom or blossoms in general, or the state of blossoming. Thus we say, trees are now in their blowth, or they have a full blowth.

BLOWZE, n. [blowz; From the same root as Blush, which see.]

1. A ruddy fat-faced woman. – Hall.
2. A cap.

BLOWZ'Y, a.

Ruddy-faced; fat and ruddy; high colored.

BLUB, v.t.

To swell. [Not in use. See Bleb.]