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have the blues
Idioms and Phrases
Also, feel blue . Feel depressed or sad, as in After seeing the old house in such bad shape, I had the blues for weeks , or Patricia tends to feel blue around the holidays . The noun blues , meaning âlow spirits,â was first recorded in 1741 and may come from blue devil , a 17th-century term for a baleful demon, or from the adjective blue meaning âsad,â a usage first recorded in Chaucer's Complaint of Mars (c. 1385). The idiom may have been reinforced by the notion that anxiety produces a livid skin color. Also see blue funk .Example Sentences
But not since the 1993-94 season have the Blues suffered 10 defeats after 23 games of a league campaign.
One of Mr. Moloneyâs more lighthearted vaudeville songs, âIf It Wasnât for the Irish and the Jews,â included a verse about immigrants as foundational to the countryâs success: âWhat would this great Yankee nation really, really ever do/If it wasnât for a Levy, a Monahan or Donohue/Where would we get our policemen/Why Uncle Sam would have the Blues/Without the Pats and Isadores, thereâd be no big department stores/If it wasnât for the Irish and the Jews.â
To have the blues is not necessarily about being sad.
Iâve always believed that to have the blues is simply knowing how intensely you must barricade your door to keep the demons out.
Thereâs an old idea about how someone doesnât play the blues, they have the blues, and through that possession, the music arises.
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Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American HeritageŸ Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
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