bleg

English

WOTD – 20 November 2012

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /blɛɡ/

• Audio (General Australian):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɛɡ

Etymology 1

Unknown

Noun

bleg (plural blegs)

1. (Northumbria) A pouting (Trisopterus luscus).
   • 4 July 2007, Jack Melton, “Fresh water gives shore anglers a clear problem”, in Sunderland Echo‎^[3]:

     Steve Thompson, on the Moonshadow, won last Wednesday’s WBA boat competition with the only fish of the night, a 1lb 8oz pouting (bleg)

   • 7 November 2007, “Sea Angling latest”, in Sunderland Echo‎^[4]:

     #*: Boats are taking ling to 18lb as well as codling to 5lbs and loads of pout whiting (blegs) on squid.

   • 29 May 2008, “Sea Angling: Wear in doldrums, Tyne and Tees looking up”, in Sunderland Echo‎^[5]:

     The only report on boat fishing last week was on Tuesday when the Wanderer managed to get out and took about a dozen codling to three pounds plus a few blegs.

   • 10 December 2010, “Fishing: Pier marks look favourite for Big Open”, in Sunderland Echo‎^[6]:

     Saturday saw just three Seahan SAC juniors fishing for the J.T. Jacobs Cup, with two weighing in three coalies, a codling and a bleg.

Etymology 2

Blend of blog +‎ beg. British-born American far-right political commentator, writer, journalist and computer programmer John Derbyshire claims to have coined the verb in 2002, although earlier usage may have occurred.

Noun

bleg (plural blegs)

2. (Internet slang) An entry on a blog requesting information or contributions.

   I posted a bleg in the hope of learning more about local tourism.

   • 2008 August 29, Andrew Sullivan, “The Utter Arrogance Of It”, in The Atlantic‎^[7]:

     Here's a bleg: can anyone direct me to any statement she [Sarah Palin] has ever made about foreign policy?

   • 2010 September 9, James Wolcott, “A Grammar of Motives*”, in Vanity Fair‎^[8], archived from the original on 14 January 2013:

     Last time I looked, The QOR Club was a shuttered ghost town, and Jeff Goldstein is still doing monthly blegs to pay for the capital letters required to proclaim OUTLAW! at the end of his sporadic posts.

   • 2012, Elizabeth Kantor, The Jane Austen Guide to Happily Ever After‎^[9], Regnery Publishing, Inc., →ISBN, acknowledgments section, page 267:

     This book was crowdsourced among many friends, who helped me to new insights about love in the twenty-first century and into Jane Austen; answered frantic Facebook blegs for sources of quotations I couldn't find; […]

Verb

bleg (third-person singular simple present blegs, present participle blegging, simple past and past participle blegged)

1. (Internet slang) To create an entry on a blog requesting information or contributions.

   That guy will bleg on the most unusual topics.

   • 2008 May 18, “Strange looks and funny lines from the past week”, in Atlanta Journal-Constitution:

     The Freakonomics blog posted a "bleg" from "Yale Book of Quotations" editor Fred Shapiro, in which Shapiro blegged for modern proverbs.

   • 2009 November 30, John J. Miller, “Novels of the Right, cont.”, in National Review Online:

     About ten days ago, I blegged for comments about great conservative novels — NRO readers now have posted more than 200 entries here [hyperlink redacted].

   • 2009 August 7, Curtis Brainard, “It’s Tanking; I’m Teaching…”, in Columbia Journalism Review:

     Zimmer had "blegged" (that’s right, begged on his blog) his readers to help him compile a number of book and article titles for inclusion in that list, and they "did not disappoint."

   • 2010 April 15, Iain Murray, “Chicagoan Voting System!”, in National Review Online:

     Yesterday, I shamelessly blegged people to vote for my son in a Parents magazine cutest kid contest.

See also

• lazyweb

Anagrams

• Belg.

Danish

Etymology 1

From Old Norse bleikr, from Proto-Germanic *blaikaz. Related to blege.

Adjective

bleg

1. pale, pallid

Inflection

Inflection of bleg

	positive	comparative	superlative
indefinite common singular	bleg	blegere	blegest2
indefinite neuter singular	blegt	blegere	blegest2
plural	blege	blegere	blegest2
definite attributive1	blege	blegere	blegeste

¹ When an adjective is applied predicatively to something definite,
the corresponding "indefinite" form is used.
² The "indefinite" superlatives may not be used attributively.

Etymology 2

See the etymology of the corresponding lemma form.

Verb

bleg

1. imperative of blege

Romanian

Etymology

Borrowed from Old Church Slavonic благъ (blagŭ), from Proto-Slavic *bolgъ (“good”). Compare Serbo-Croatian blag.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /bleɡ/

Adjective

bleg m or n (feminine singular bleagă, masculine plural blegi, feminine and neuter plural blege)

1. soft, shy, silly, dull, weak, foolish, sheepish
2. (of ears, usually animals) going down, droopy

Declension

		singular				plural
		masculine	neuter	feminine		masculine	neuter	feminine
nominative- accusative	indefinite	bleg		bleagă		blegi	blege
	definite	blegul		bleaga		blegii	blegele
genitive- dative	indefinite	bleg		blege		blegi	blege
	definite	blegului		blegei		blegilor	blegelor

Scots

Alternative forms

• bleget

Etymology

From Old Norse bleikr.

Adjective

bleg

1. (of colour) Light and drab, esp. of (wool of) sheep.

References

• https://www.dsl.ac.uk/entry/snd/bleg_adj