Forms: 1 bleȝen, 3 blein(e, 3–5 bleyn(e, 3–8 blane, 5–6 blayn(e, 6–7 blaine, 6– blain. [OE. bleʓen str. fem., = MDu. bleine, Du. blein, LG. bleien, Da. blegn; OTeut. form possibly *bleganâ-: cf. OHG. blehin-ougi ‘lippus.’]
1. An inflammatory swelling or sore on the surface of the body, often accompanied by ulceration; a blister, botch, pustule; applied also to the eruptions in some pestilential diseases. Cf. CHILBLAIN.
c. 1000. Sax. Leechd., I. 380. Wið þa bleʓene ʓenim niʓon æʓra and seoð hiʓ fæste.
a. 1225. St. Marher., 18. Barst on to bleinen þæt hit aras up oueral.
c. 1250. Gen. & Ex., 3027. Blein on erue and man.
1382. Wyclif, Job ii. 7. He smot Iob with the werste stinkende bleyne [1388 wickid botche, Coverd. sore byles].
c. 1440. Bone Flor., 2024. The fowlest mesell bredd Of pokkys and bleynes bloo.
1529. More, Comfort agst. Tribulat., III. Wks. 1224/1. Yf his fynger dooe but ake of an hoate blaine.
1544. Ascham, Toxoph. (Arb.), 49. A litle blayne … in his finger, may kepe him.
1583. Stubbes, Anat. Abus. (1877), 96. It bringeth ulcerations, scab, scurf, blain.
1612. Woodall, Surg. Mate, Wks. (1653), 332. The third manifest and demonstrative sign of [the Plague] … is the Pestilential Blain.
1667. Milton, P. L., XII. 180. Botches and blaines must all his flesh imboss.
1850. Layard, Nineveh, vii. 154. Children … covered with discoloured blains.
fig. 1866. Lond. Rev., 10 March, 276/1. Some moral blain has suddenly broken out on … a fair character.
2. ‘A distemper incident to beasts, consisting in a bladder growing on the root of the tongue against the wind-pipe, which at length swelling, stops the breath’ (Chambers, Cycl., 1727–51).
¶ Jamieson’s sense ‘A mark left by a wound,’ is apparently erroneous.
3. Comb. † blain-grass, ? clover; † blain-worm, some parasitic insect; also fig.
1570. Levins, Manip., 35. Blaynegrasse, trifolium.
1657. Brome, Queen, V. viii. 123. Are you so tart, Court Blainworm?
1658. Rowland, trans. Moufet’s Theat. Ins., 1000. In English it [the Buprestis] is called a Blainworm, or Troings.
a. 1722. Lisle, Husb. (1752), 342. If the blain-worm be broken in the mouth of the cow … he knows no cure for it.
