blue-red

English

Etymology

From blue +‎ red. Compare Old English blēorēad (“blue-red, purple”).

Adjective

blue-red (comparative more blue-red, superlative most blue-red)

1. Of a colour between blue and red; purple or crimson.

   blue-red:  

   • 1840, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Goethe's Theory of Colours:

     This unquiet feeling increases as the hue progresses, and it may be safely assumed, that a carpet of a perfectly pure deep blue-red [translating Blaurot] would be intolerable.

   • 1898, The Year-book for Colorists and Dyers, page 85:

     A dye-stuff which dyes wool and silk in acid-bath in fine red-violet tints, dissolves in water with a blue-red color and a yellowish fluorescence, is sparingly soluble in alcohol, insoluble in ether and benzene, […]

   • 1908, Samuel Philip Sadtler, A Hand-book of Industrial Organic Chemistry:

     Amyl alcohol extracts a blue-red color from material dyed with magenta, but extracts a yellow color from aurin, while from orchil a pink or violet color is obtained.

   • 1925, Chemical Abstracts, volume 19, page 2649:

     (V), C₁₄H₉O₃NBr₂, dark crystals with cantharides luster, blackens above 230°, does not m. 310°, sol. in NaOH with blue-red color and very faint fluorescence.

   • 2013, Crispin Latymer, Where the Ocean Meets the Sky, page 48:

     Standing and moving to under one of the lights by the nav station I could see a dark blue-red mark across the right side of my rib cage. Prodding gently I realised I had just cracked or broken one or more ribs.

   • 2014, Barbara L. Herlihy, The Human Body in Health and Illness, page 289:

     When hemoglobin is unoxygenated, blood assumes a darker blue-red color. Thus, blood coming from the lungs is well oxygenated and appears red. Blood leaving the tissues has given up its oxygen and appears blue-red.

   • 2021, Allie Boniface, Inferno of Love:

     She ran her fingers down his leg, tugging up his jeans to reveal a blue-red bruise already starting to swell.

2. Consisting of the colours blue and red individually.

   a blue-red cock (rooster)

Noun

blue-red (countable and uncountable, plural blue-reds)

1. A colour between blue and red; purple or crimson.
   • 1981, The Technical Educator, an Encyclopædia:

     Let us suppose a red represented by the equivalent number, five, with one part of blue added to it, thus causing it to be a blue-red or crimson.

   • 2014, Joen Wolfrom, Color Play, page 104:

     A blue-red monochromatic color plan includes any hues created when blue-red is combined with white, black, and/or gray.

Related terms

• yellow-red

Anagrams

• brûléed, reblued