"blue devils" meaning in English

See blue devils in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Noun

Audio: en-au-blue devils.ogg [Australia]
Etymology: Originally apparitions supposed to be seen by sufferers of delirium tremens. Head templates: {{en-noun|p}} blue devils pl (plural only)
  1. (idiomatic) low spirits; depression Tags: idiomatic, plural, plural-only Synonyms (depression): mulligrubs Translations (low spirits): idée noire [feminine] (French), déprime [feminine] (French), dołek [masculine] (Polish), хандра́ (xandrá) [feminine] (Russian)
    Sense id: en-blue_devils-en-noun-FnjoVPWb Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header, English pluralia tantum Disambiguation of English entries with incorrect language header: 76 24 Disambiguation of English pluralia tantum: 88 12 Disambiguation of 'depression': 96 4 Disambiguation of 'low spirits': 94 6
  2. (idiomatic) depressants, especially the barbiturate amobarbital. Tags: idiomatic, plural, plural-only
    Sense id: en-blue_devils-en-noun-lRlUQE2W

Download JSON data for blue devils meaning in English (2.5kB)

{
  "etymology_text": "Originally apparitions supposed to be seen by sufferers of delirium tremens.",
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "p"
      },
      "expansion": "blue devils pl (plural only)",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "_dis": "76 24",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        },
        {
          "_dis": "88 12",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English pluralia tantum",
          "parents": [
            "Pluralia tantum",
            "Nouns",
            "Lemmas"
          ],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1890, William Morris, News from Nowhere, in the journal The Commonweal. (First published in book form 1890.)",
          "text": "\"[…] the disease is either extinct, or exists in such a mild form that a short course of aperient medicine carries it off. It is sometimes called the Blue-devils now or the Mulleygrubs. Queer names, ain't they?\""
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "low spirits; depression"
      ],
      "id": "en-blue_devils-en-noun-FnjoVPWb",
      "links": [
        [
          "depression",
          "depression"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic) low spirits; depression"
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "_dis1": "96 4",
          "sense": "depression",
          "word": "mulligrubs"
        }
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic",
        "plural",
        "plural-only"
      ],
      "translations": [
        {
          "_dis1": "94 6",
          "code": "fr",
          "lang": "French",
          "sense": "low spirits",
          "tags": [
            "feminine"
          ],
          "word": "idée noire"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "94 6",
          "code": "fr",
          "lang": "French",
          "sense": "low spirits",
          "tags": [
            "feminine"
          ],
          "word": "déprime"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "94 6",
          "code": "pl",
          "lang": "Polish",
          "sense": "low spirits",
          "tags": [
            "masculine"
          ],
          "word": "dołek"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "94 6",
          "code": "ru",
          "lang": "Russian",
          "note": "зелёная тоска́ f (zeljónaja toská, literally “green melancholy”)",
          "sense": "low spirits"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "94 6",
          "code": "ru",
          "lang": "Russian",
          "roman": "xandrá",
          "sense": "low spirits",
          "tags": [
            "feminine"
          ],
          "word": "хандра́"
        }
      ]
    },
    {
      "categories": [],
      "glosses": [
        "depressants, especially the barbiturate amobarbital."
      ],
      "id": "en-blue_devils-en-noun-lRlUQE2W",
      "links": [
        [
          "amobarbital",
          "amobarbital"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic) depressants, especially the barbiturate amobarbital."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic",
        "plural",
        "plural-only"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "audio": "en-au-blue devils.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/f/fc/En-au-blue_devils.ogg/En-au-blue_devils.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fc/En-au-blue_devils.ogg",
      "tags": [
        "Australia"
      ],
      "text": "Audio (AU)"
    }
  ],
  "word": "blue devils"
}
{
  "categories": [
    "English entries with incorrect language header",
    "English lemmas",
    "English multiword terms",
    "English nouns",
    "English pluralia tantum",
    "English terms with audio links"
  ],
  "etymology_text": "Originally apparitions supposed to be seen by sufferers of delirium tremens.",
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "p"
      },
      "expansion": "blue devils pl (plural only)",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English idioms"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1890, William Morris, News from Nowhere, in the journal The Commonweal. (First published in book form 1890.)",
          "text": "\"[…] the disease is either extinct, or exists in such a mild form that a short course of aperient medicine carries it off. It is sometimes called the Blue-devils now or the Mulleygrubs. Queer names, ain't they?\""
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "low spirits; depression"
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "depression",
          "depression"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic) low spirits; depression"
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic",
        "plural",
        "plural-only"
      ]
    },
    {
      "categories": [
        "English idioms"
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "depressants, especially the barbiturate amobarbital."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "amobarbital",
          "amobarbital"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic) depressants, especially the barbiturate amobarbital."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic",
        "plural",
        "plural-only"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "audio": "en-au-blue devils.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/f/fc/En-au-blue_devils.ogg/En-au-blue_devils.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fc/En-au-blue_devils.ogg",
      "tags": [
        "Australia"
      ],
      "text": "Audio (AU)"
    }
  ],
  "synonyms": [
    {
      "sense": "depression",
      "word": "mulligrubs"
    }
  ],
  "translations": [
    {
      "code": "fr",
      "lang": "French",
      "sense": "low spirits",
      "tags": [
        "feminine"
      ],
      "word": "idée noire"
    },
    {
      "code": "fr",
      "lang": "French",
      "sense": "low spirits",
      "tags": [
        "feminine"
      ],
      "word": "déprime"
    },
    {
      "code": "pl",
      "lang": "Polish",
      "sense": "low spirits",
      "tags": [
        "masculine"
      ],
      "word": "dołek"
    },
    {
      "code": "ru",
      "lang": "Russian",
      "note": "зелёная тоска́ f (zeljónaja toská, literally “green melancholy”)",
      "sense": "low spirits"
    },
    {
      "code": "ru",
      "lang": "Russian",
      "roman": "xandrá",
      "sense": "low spirits",
      "tags": [
        "feminine"
      ],
      "word": "хандра́"
    }
  ],
  "word": "blue devils"
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-05-01 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-04-21 using wiktextract (f4fd8c9 and c9440ce). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.