English edit

Etymology edit

From blue +‎ red. Compare Old English blēorēad (blue-red, purple).

Adjective edit

blue-red (comparative more blue-red, superlative most blue-red)

  1. Of a colour between blue and red; purple or crimson.
    blue-red:  
    • 1840, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Goethe's Theory of Colours:
      This unquiet feeling increases as the hue progresses, and it may be safely assumed, that a carpet of a perfectly pure deep blue-red [translating Blaurot] would be intolerable.
    • 1898, The Year-book for Colorists and Dyers, page 85:
      A dye-stuff which dyes wool and silk in acid-bath in fine red-violet tints, dissolves in water with a blue-red color and a yellowish fluorescence, is sparingly soluble in alcohol, insoluble in ether and benzene, []
    • 1908, Samuel Philip Sadtler, A Hand-book of Industrial Organic Chemistry:
      Amyl alcohol extracts a blue-red color from material dyed with magenta, but extracts a yellow color from aurin, while from orchil a pink or violet color is obtained.
    • 1925, Chemical Abstracts, volume 19, page 2649:
      (V), C14H9O3NBr2, dark crystals with cantharides luster, blackens above 230°, does not m. 310°, sol. in NaOH with blue-red color and very faint fluorescence.
    • 2013, Crispin Latymer, Where the Ocean Meets the Sky, page 48:
      Standing and moving to under one of the lights by the nav station I could see a dark blue-red mark across the right side of my rib cage. Prodding gently I realised I had just cracked or broken one or more ribs.
    • 2014, Barbara L. Herlihy, The Human Body in Health and Illness, page 289:
      When hemoglobin is unoxygenated, blood assumes a darker blue-red color. Thus, blood coming from the lungs is well oxygenated and appears red. Blood leaving the tissues has given up its oxygen and appears blue-red.
    • 2021, Allie Boniface, Inferno of Love:
      She ran her fingers down his leg, tugging up his jeans to reveal a blue-red bruise already starting to swell.
  2. Consisting of the colours blue and red individually.
    a blue-red cock (rooster)

Noun edit

blue-red (countable and uncountable, plural blue-reds)

  1. A colour between blue and red; purple or crimson.
    • 1981, The Technical Educator, an Encyclopædia:
      Let us suppose a red represented by the equivalent number, five, with one part of blue added to it, thus causing it to be a blue-red or crimson.
    • 2014, Joen Wolfrom, Color Play, page 104:
      A blue-red monochromatic color plan includes any hues created when blue-red is combined with white, black, and/or gray.

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