Also 7–8 blite. [A word of unknown origin, which entered literature, apparently from the speech of farmers or gardeners, in the 17th c.; literary men were at first doubtful as to its proper spelling, and seem to have thought of the plant BLITE.
(Among suggestions as to its origin are: that it is somehow related to BLICHENING above; that it may possibly represent an ON. *bleht-r, the antecedent of Icel. blettr stain, spot, blot; that it is a derivative of the verb blike, or of the stem black or bleyke, bleach, bleak; or onomatopœic, with a feeling for blow, blast, and kindred bl- words.)]
1. gen. Any baleful influence of atmospheric or invisible origin, that suddenly blasts, nips, or destroys plants, affects them with disease, arrests their growth, or prevents their blossom from ‘setting’; a diseased state of plants of unknown or assumed atmospheric origin.
1669. Worlidge, Syst. Agric., viii. § 3 (1681), 159. Tillage is not so hazardous, or subject to be spoiled by the various mutations of the Air, or by Blights, Mildews, &c.
1697. Dryden, Virg. Georg., IV. 468. With Blites destroy my Corn. Ibid., Palamon & Arc., II. 59. So may thy tender Blossoms fear no blite.
1699. Garth, Dispens., VI. 78. Their blissful Plains no Blites, nor Mildews fear.
a. 1700. Temple, Miscell., Gardening, Wks. 1720, I. 188 [not in ed. 1690]. A Soot or Smuttiness upon the Leaves [of Wall fruit] … I complained to the oldest and best Gardeners, who … esteemed it some Blight of the Spring.
1720. Gay, Poems (1745), II. 87. Fade not with sudden blights or winter’s wind.
1737. Miller, Gard. Dict. (R.). Blights are often caused by a continued easterly wind.
1812. J. Wilson, Isle of Palms, IV. 762. Flowers … Unharm’d by frost or blight.
2. Specifically applied to: a. Diseases in plants caused by fungoid parasites, as mildew, rust, or smut, in corn. (App. the earliest use.)
1611. Cotgr., Brulure, blight, brancorne; (an hearbe).
1671. Skinner, Etymol., Blight, idem quod milldew … quæ fruges corrumpit.
1807. Vancouver, Agric. Devon (1813), 434. Wheat … very much smitten with the bligh[t], or rust, as it is generally called in this neighbourhood.
1830. Lindley, Nat. Syst. Bot., 337. The blight in corn, occasioned by Puccinia graminis.
1859. W. Coleman, Woodlands (1866), 75. If a tuft of this blight as it is called be closely examined.
b. A species of aphis, destructive to fruit-trees.
[Cf. 1727. Bradley, Fam. Dict., s.v., The common People … are so well satisfy’d that Blights are brought by the East-Wind, which brings or hatches the Caterpillar.]
1802. Paley, Nat. Theol., xxvi. (1819), 423. What we call blights are oftentimes legions of animated beings.
1882. Garden, 11 Feb., 99/2. The worst insect enemy to the attacks of which the Apple is liable is what is termed the American blight.
1885. Contemp. Rev., Oct., 561. It thinks there are some ‘blight’ among the blossoms at the top, and if there are it will eat them.
c. A close hazy overcast state of the atmosphere, which sometimes prevails in summer or autumn.
1848. Lytton, Harold, iv. 194. In that smoke as in a blight the wings withered up.
3. Applied to affections of the face or skin: a. An eruption on the human skin consisting of minute reddish pimples, ‘a form of Lichen urticatus.’
1864. in Webster.
1880. in Syd. Soc. Lex.
b. Facial palsy arising from cold. Syd. Soc. Lex.
c. Blight in the eye: extravasation of blood under the conjunctive membrane.
4. transf. and fig. Any malignant influence of obscure or mysterious origin; anything which withers hopes or prospects, or checks prosperity.
a. 1661. Holyday, Juvenal, 246. Let Isis with her timbrel strike me blind (not properly with the sistrum it self, but with its invisible power, with a blite).
1797. Godwin, Enquirer, I. v. 35. Genius … may … suffer an untimely blight.
1873. Burton, Hist. Scot., VI. lxx. 212. A strange mysterious punishment, which seemed like a blight or judgement of a higher power.
1884. Fortn. Rev., Jan., 79. The withering blight of Turkish rule.
5. Comb., as blight-beetle.
1852. T. Harris, Insects New Eng., 79. This insect, which may be called the blight-beetle, from the injury it occasions, attacks also apple, apricot, and plum trees.
