een blauwe scheen lopen
Dutch edit
Alternative forms edit
- een blaauwe scheen lopen (obsolete)
Etymology edit
From earlier blauwe scheen (“romantic rejection”). Literally, “to get oneself a bruised shin”, referring to getting kicked against the shin when rejected by a woman. A number of verb phrases with blauwe scheen were in use from the late sixteenth to the early eighteenth century; the variant with lopen was frequently used by the widely read author Jacob Cats. By the second half of the seventeenth century there seems to have been a general preference for lopen.
Pronunciation edit
Verb edit
- (intransitive, idiomatic, chiefly historical) to have one's romantic advances rejected [from early 17th c.]
- 1621, Jacob Cats, Self-stryd, dat is, Crachtighe bevveginghe van Vleesch ende Gheest, page 2:
- Hoe dat mijn brandich hert in hooger luſten ſteygert, / Hoe dat u koel gemoet [or "koelgemoet"], met meerder crachten weygert, / En ſtoot my voor het hooft: dies gaen wy druypen heen, / Ghelijck een vryer doet, die loopt een blauwe ſcheen.
- How rears my burning heart in higher desires, / How refuses your cool composure with manifold powers / And snubs me badly; thus we slink off dejected / Like a suitor does, who gets his love rejected.
- (intransitive, idiomatic, chiefly historical) to receive a rejection
Inflection edit
Conjugation of een blauwe scheen lopen: see lopen.