blue streak

See also: bluestreak

English

Etymology

From the afterimage of a stroke of lightning, which looks like a blue streak across the sky.

Noun

blue streak

1. (informal, originally US) A great deal of fast talking, cursing, lying, or similar.

   to talk a blue streak

   • 1847, The Knickerbocker, page 178:

     interspersing his vehement comments with a ‘blue streak’ of oaths

   • 1895 September, The Century Magazine, page 676:

     He calmly lied to me a blue streak, and he knew that I knew he was lying

   • 1951, Tennessee Williams, Oscar Saul, A Streetcar Named Desire, spoken by Blanche (Vivien Leigh):

     This old maid, she had a parrot that cursed a blue streak and knew more vulgar expressions than Mr. Kowalski.

   • 2007, Sue Owens Wright, 150 Activities For Bored Dogs:

     If you leave your dog alone in your backyard for hours at a time, he may be barking a blue streak, too.

2. A trace left by something that is too quick to see.
   • 1830 May 14, Kentuckian, page 2/5:

     To pass […] with such rapidity as not even to leave a ‘blue streak’ behind him

   • 1867, James Howard, A Trip to America: Two Lectures, page 35:

     An American engineer, who had been in England, described the Express train from Liverpool to London as running a "blue streak," by which he meant going like lightning.

   • 1907, Mark Twain, A Horse's Tale:

     Now then, watch me leave a blue streak behind!

   • 1977, Dick D'Easum, Sawtooth Tales, page 273:

     Running like a blue streak from your old mammy.

   • 2006, Mignon C. Reynolds, Life as Bonkers, page 13:

     She was wild and crazy, and she could run a blue streak.

   • 2014, Leroy Stover, Birmingham First Black in Blue:

     He (the suspect) should know better than to run from my partner Leroy, for he's like a blue streak.

Further reading

• Jonathon Green (2024) “blue streak n.”, in Green’s Dictionary of Slang
• Grammarist