"blue moon" meaning in English

See blue moon in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Noun

Audio: en-au-blue moon.ogg [Australia] Forms: blue moons [plural]
Head templates: {{en-noun|~}} blue moon (countable and uncountable, plural blue moons)
  1. (countable) An extra full moon that appears in a subdivision of a year, namely:
    The third full moon in a season that contains four rather than the usual three full moons.
    Tags: countable, uncountable Categories (topical): Astronomy, Moon
    Sense id: en-blue_moon-en-noun-Owjz5xAj Disambiguation of Astronomy: 28 31 13 18 10 Disambiguation of Moon: 33 36 9 12 10
  2. (countable) An extra full moon that appears in a subdivision of a year, namely:
    The second of two full moons that occur in the same calendar month (a definition created by mistake in the 20th century).
    Tags: countable, uncountable Categories (topical): Astronomy, Moon
    Sense id: en-blue_moon-en-noun-cM4Ubld3 Disambiguation of Astronomy: 28 31 13 18 10 Disambiguation of Moon: 33 36 9 12 10 Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header Disambiguation of English entries with incorrect language header: 23 39 9 9 20
  3. (countable, rare) The moon tinted towards blue as it appears in the sky, caused by dust or smoke in the atmosphere. Tags: countable, rare Categories (topical): Astronomy Derived forms: once in a blue moon
    Sense id: en-blue_moon-en-noun-luaAz7N3 Disambiguation of Astronomy: 28 31 13 18 10
  4. (countable, idiomatic, by extension) A long time. Tags: broadly, countable, idiomatic Categories (topical): Astronomy, Moon, Time
    Sense id: en-blue_moon-en-noun-9IxR06hb Disambiguation of Astronomy: 28 31 13 18 10 Disambiguation of Moon: 33 36 9 12 10 Disambiguation of Time: 21 21 0 58 0
  5. (uncountable) A bright blue, sweet-flavored ice cream that is popular in the Midwestern U.S. and is a component of Superman ice cream. Tags: uncountable Categories (topical): Ice cream
    Sense id: en-blue_moon-en-noun-aFzSctwJ Disambiguation of Ice cream: 3 6 2 19 71

Inflected forms

Download JSON data for blue moon meaning in English (5.1kB)

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  "lang_code": "en",
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    {
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        {
          "_dis": "28 31 13 18 10",
          "kind": "topical",
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          "name": "Astronomy",
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          "source": "w+disamb"
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      "glosses": [
        "An extra full moon that appears in a subdivision of a year, namely:",
        "The third full moon in a season that contains four rather than the usual three full moons."
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      "id": "en-blue_moon-en-noun-Owjz5xAj",
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      "raw_glosses": [
        "(countable) An extra full moon that appears in a subdivision of a year, namely:",
        "The third full moon in a season that contains four rather than the usual three full moons."
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      "glosses": [
        "An extra full moon that appears in a subdivision of a year, namely:",
        "The second of two full moons that occur in the same calendar month (a definition created by mistake in the 20th century)."
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      "raw_glosses": [
        "(countable) An extra full moon that appears in a subdivision of a year, namely:",
        "The second of two full moons that occur in the same calendar month (a definition created by mistake in the 20th century)."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "countable",
        "uncountable"
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            "Nature",
            "Fundamental"
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          "source": "w+disamb"
        }
      ],
      "derived": [
        {
          "_dis1": "24 25 35 0 16",
          "word": "once in a blue moon"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "The moon tinted towards blue as it appears in the sky, caused by dust or smoke in the atmosphere."
      ],
      "id": "en-blue_moon-en-noun-luaAz7N3",
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          "sky",
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        ],
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          "smoke",
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          "atmosphere"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(countable, rare) The moon tinted towards blue as it appears in the sky, caused by dust or smoke in the atmosphere."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "countable",
        "rare"
      ]
    },
    {
      "categories": [
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          "_dis": "28 31 13 18 10",
          "kind": "topical",
          "langcode": "en",
          "name": "Astronomy",
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          "parents": [
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            "Space",
            "All topics",
            "Nature",
            "Fundamental"
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          "_dis": "33 36 9 12 10",
          "kind": "topical",
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            "Light",
            "Moons",
            "Nature",
            "Space",
            "Energy",
            "All topics",
            "Fundamental"
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        },
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          "_dis": "21 21 0 58 0",
          "kind": "topical",
          "langcode": "en",
          "name": "Time",
          "orig": "en:Time",
          "parents": [
            "All topics",
            "Fundamental"
          ],
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      ],
      "glosses": [
        "A long time."
      ],
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        "(countable, idiomatic, by extension) A long time."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "broadly",
        "countable",
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    },
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          "_dis": "3 6 2 19 71",
          "kind": "topical",
          "langcode": "en",
          "name": "Ice cream",
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            "Eating",
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            "Human behaviour",
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        "(uncountable) A bright blue, sweet-flavored ice cream that is popular in the Midwestern U.S. and is a component of Superman ice cream."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "uncountable"
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  "sounds": [
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    "blue moon"
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  "derived": [
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  "forms": [
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  "lang_code": "en",
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  "senses": [
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        "An extra full moon that appears in a subdivision of a year, namely:",
        "The third full moon in a season that contains four rather than the usual three full moons."
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        "(countable) An extra full moon that appears in a subdivision of a year, namely:",
        "The third full moon in a season that contains four rather than the usual three full moons."
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        "(countable) An extra full moon that appears in a subdivision of a year, namely:",
        "The second of two full moons that occur in the same calendar month (a definition created by mistake in the 20th century)."
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        "uncountable"
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        "(countable, rare) The moon tinted towards blue as it appears in the sky, caused by dust or smoke in the atmosphere."
      ],
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        "rare"
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    {
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      "raw_glosses": [
        "(countable, idiomatic, by extension) A long time."
      ],
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      "raw_glosses": [
        "(uncountable) A bright blue, sweet-flavored ice cream that is popular in the Midwestern U.S. and is a component of Superman ice cream."
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      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/67/En-au-blue_moon.ogg",
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}

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.