(The), subs. (common).—1. Despondency; hypochondria; depression of spirits. [A shortened form of BLUE DEVILS (q.v.).] Fr. se faire des plumes or paumer ses plumes.
1807. IRVING, Salmagundi (1824), 96. Every body knows how provoking it is to be cut short in a fit of the BLUES, by an impertinent question about what is the matter, when a man can’t tell himself.
1856. WHYTE-MELVILLE, Kate Coventry, viii. The moat alone is enough to give one THE BLUES.
1889. J. S. WINTER, That Imp, 10. ‘Miss Aurora,’ he said suddenly, one evening after dinner, ‘It’s awfully dull at Drive now; does it never strike you so?’ ‘Very often, my dear,’ answered Miss Aurora promptly. ‘It’s as dull as—’ ‘Ditch-water,’ supplied Driver, finding she paused for a word which would express dulness enough. ‘I wonder you and Betty don’t die of THE BLUES.’
2. (common).—The police: see BLUE, subs. sense 1.
1836. HOOD, A Row at the Oxford Arms.
| Well, that’s the row, and who can guess the upshot after all? | |
| Whether Harmony will ever make the ‘Arms’ her house of call: | |
| Or whether this here mobbing, as some longish heads fortell it, | |
| Will grow to such a riot, that the Oxford BLUES must quell it. |
3. (military).—The Royal Horse Guards Blue: from the blue facings on the scarlet uniform. The corps first obtained the name of ‘Oxford Blues’ in 1690, to distinguish it from a Dutch regiment of Horse Guards dressed in blue, commanded by the Earl of Portland, the former being commanded by the Earl of Oxford. Subsequently the regiment was, during the campaign in Flanders 1742–45, known as the ‘Blue Guards.’
1412. OCCLEVE, De Regimine Principum [Roxburghe]. 26. [There is the phrase] my blewes (blue clothes)].
