1. A baleful demon (cf. BLUE a. 3, 8).
1616. R. C., Times’ Whistle, vii. 3443. Alston, whose life hath been accounted evill, And therfore calde by many the blew devill.
1870. Lowell, Among My Books, Ser. I. (1873), 364. He … keeps a pet sorrow, a blue-devil familiar, that goes with him everywhere.
2. fig. in pl. Blue devils: a. Despondency, depression of spirits, hypochondriac melancholy.
1787. [see Blue devilism below].
1798. G. Colman (title), Blue Devils, a Farce.
1800. W. Rhodes, Bom. Fur., i. (1836), 3. Do the blue devils your repose annoy?
1810. T. Jefferson, Writ. (1830), IV. 144. We have something of the blue devils at times.
1823. Byron, Juan, X. xxxviii. Though six days smoothly run, The seventh will bring blue devils or a dun.
b. The apparitions seen in delirium tremens.
1822. Cobbett, Resid. U. S., 42. Just the weather to give drunkards the ‘blue devils.’
1830. Scott, Demonol., i. 18. They, by a continued series of intoxication, become subject to what is popularly called the Blue Devils.
Hence Blue-devilage, Blue-devilism.
1787. Burns, Lett., lxviii. Wks. (1875), 355. In my bitter hours or blue-devilism.
1816. Elphinstone, in Edin. Rev. (1884), July, 136. He styles Childe Harold ‘exquisite blue-devilage.’
