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-West Germanic *blasā, 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 August, Robert W[illiam] Chambers, chapter III, in The Younger Set, New York, N.Y.: D. Appleton & Company, →OCLC:

     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

   • 1671, John Milton, “Samson Agonistes, .”, in Paradise Regain’d. A Poem. In IV Books. To which is Added, Samson Agonistes, London: J. M for John Starkey , →OCLC, page 13:

     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.

   blaze:  

   Synonyms: safety orange, international orange

5. A bursting out, or active display of any quality.

   Synonym: outburst

   • c. 1602, William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Troylus and Cressida”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies  (First Folio), London: Isaac Iaggard, and Ed Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act IV, scene v]:

     his blaze of wrath

   • 1671, John Milton, “The Fourth Book”, in Paradise Regain’d. A Poem. In IV Books. To which is Added, Samson Agonistes, London: J. M for John Starkey , →OCLC, page 3:

     For what is glory but the blaze of fame?

6. A spot made on trees by chipping off a piece of the bark, usually as a surveyor's mark.
   • 1855, Baynard Rush Hall, The New Purchase: Or, Early Years in the Far West - Page 71‎:

     The blaze is a longitudinal cut on trees at convenient intervals, made by cutting off the bark with an axe or hatchet: three blazes in a perpendicular line on the same tree indicating a legislative road, the single blaze, a settlement or neighbourhood road.

7. (poker) A hand consisting of five face cards.

Derived terms

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 bright flames.

   The campfire blazed merrily.

2. (intransitive) To send forth or reflect a bright light; shine like a flame.
   • 1793, William Wordsworth, Descriptive Sketches:

     And far and wide the icy summit blaze.

   • 1913, Joseph C[rosby] Lincoln, chapter I, in Mr. Pratt’s Patients, New York, N.Y., London: D[aniel] Appleton and Company, →OCLC:

     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. (intransitive, poetic) To be conspicuous; shine brightly a brilliancy (of talents, deeds, etc.).
4. (transitive, rare) To set in a blaze; burn.
5. (transitive) To cause to shine forth; exhibit vividly; be resplendent with.
6. (transitive, only in the past participle) To mark with a white spot on the face (as a horse).
7. (transitive) To set a mark on (as a tree, usually by cutting off a piece of its bark).
   • 1887, Harriet W. Daly, Digging, Squatting, and Pioneering Life in the Northern Territory of South Australia, page 105:

     They had, just as we expected they would, cut Stuart's tracks, and had actually slept one night in one of his old camping-places, finding the trees "blazed" and marked "S.," as were all the trees at intervals along his line of exploration.

   • 1912, Arthur Conan Doyle, The Lost World , London, New York, N.Y.: Hodder and Stoughton, →OCLC:

     We drew them up, therefore, and concealed them among the bushes, blazing a tree with our axes, so that we should find them again.

8. (transitive) To indicate or mark out (a trail, especially through vegetation) by a series of blazes.

   The guide blazed his way through the undergrowth.

9. (transitive, figurative) To set a precedent for the taking-on of a challenge; lead by example.

   Darwin blazed a path for the rest of us.

10. (figurative) To be furiously angry; to speak or write in a rage.
    • 1929, Reginald Charles Barker, The Hair-trigger Brand, page 160:

      "I'll die before I let my grandad pay you that much money!" blazed the girl.

11. (slang) To smoke marijuana.
    • 2005, “We Major”, in Late Registration, performed by Kanye West ft. Really Doe and Nas:

      I take a hit of that chronic, it got me stuck / But really what's amazing is how I keep blazing

    • 2015, Jme (lyrics and music), “Pulse 8” (track 1), in Integrity>, performed by Jme:

      Fam, I don't blaze / But I can bill up, so if I get bored / I might mm, bill it / At studio, I'm like mm, kill it

Related terms

Translations

Etymology 3

From Middle English blasen (“to blow”), from Old English *blǣsan, from Proto-West Germanic *blāsan, 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.
   • 1576, Gerard LEGH, The Accedens of Armory. With an address to the Reader by R. Argoll. Woodcuts. MS. notes, page 28:

     And nowe here is another crosse for your learning, and is thus blazed. The field is Argét, a playn crosse Gules, voyded of the first.

   • 1597, John Bossewell, Works of Armorie: devided into 3 Bookes, intituled the Concordes of Armorie, the Armorie of Honor and of lotes and creastes, page 28:

     [...] yée thal blaze his Armes thus. A. beareth Argent, and Sable parted per Pale.

   • 1877, Henry Sydney Grazebrook, Collections for a genealogy of the noble families of Henzey, Tyttery, and Tyzack, page 26:

     Beinge thus blazed: Henzell On a ffeild Gules, beareth Three Acornes Slipped Or; Two and One.

Noun

blaze (plural blazes)

1. Publication; the act of spreading widely by report.

References

• “blaze”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.
• “blaze”, in The Century Dictionary , New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911, →OCLC.

Anagrams

• Elbaz, Zabel

Czech

Etymology

From blahý +‎ -e.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key):
• Rhymes: -azɛ
• Hyphenation: bla‧ze

Adverb

blaze (comparative blažeji, superlative nejblažeji)

1. blissfully, happily
   • 1868, Emanuel František Züngel, “Triolet”, in Básně‎, pages 20–21:

     Pak budu zas tiše, blaze žíti,
     zapomenuv na to, co mne hnětlo;
     mír a pokoj budu v duši míti.

     (please add an English translation of this quotation)

Related terms

Related terms

Further reading

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

Dutch

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key):

• Audio

  (file)

Verb

blaze

1. (dated or formal) singular present subjunctive of blazen

Anagrams

• bazel

West Frisian

Etymology

From Old Frisian *blēsa, from Proto-West Germanic *blāsan, from Proto-Germanic *blēsaną.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈblazə/

Verb

blaze

1. to blow

Inflection

Further reading

• “blaze (I)”, in Wurdboek fan de Fryske taal (in Dutch), 2011

Yola

Alternative forms

• bleaze, blease

Etymology

From Middle English blase, from Old English blase, from Proto-West Germanic *blasā.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /bliːz/

Noun

blaze

1. faggot

References

• Jacob Poole (d. 1827) (before 1828) William Barnes, editor, A Glossary, With some Pieces of Verse, of the old Dialect of the English Colony in the Baronies of Forth and Bargy, County of Wexford, Ireland, London: J. Russell Smith, published 1867, page 26