blues
noun
Form of blue , plural of blue.
Simple meaning
A feeling of sadness or depression.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
bloozIPA pronunciation (US)
ˈbluz
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
usually in the pluralinformal
A feeling of sadness or depression.
informalin the singular or in the plural
One's particular life experience, particularly including the hardships one has faced.
informalin the singular or in the plural
The negative emotional state produced by a particular action, occupation, experience, or idea.
A uniform made principally of a blue fabric, and especially a full dress uniform thus colored.
informal
Any of several sports teams whose uniform is predominantly blue, such as
A state of depression
“He had a bad case of the blues.”
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- A2 · Elementary (estimated)
- Frequency
- Common
- Typical Use
- Everyday English
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: A feeling of sadness or depression.
Used this way, blues is a reasonably familiar word with a clearly unfavourable pull. It turns up most in everyday conversation and social media or informal writing contexts.
- Emotional tone
- Negative
- Formality
- Casual
- Intensity
- Moderate
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- Serious and weighty
- Usage feel
- Casual and conversational
Where it naturally appears
- Everyday conversation
- Social media/informal writing
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use blues
- “He had a bad case of the blues.”noun
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Compound terms
Established multiword terms.
A dress uniform for formal occasions.
A combination of blues and jazz that was developed in the United States by Black musicians.
A performer (and sometimes composer) of rhythm and blues music.
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.