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blues

/bluːz/ noun B1
  1. A feeling of sadness or depression. (countable, informal, uncountable) · I've got the blues today.· The blues have hit her hard, and she won't get out of bed.
  2. One's particular life experience, particularly including the hardships one has faced. (countable, informal, uncountable) · Your blues is just like mine.· Your blues are just like mine.
  3. The negative emotional state produced by a particular action, occupation, experience, or idea. (countable, informal, uncountable) · I've got the lonely man's blues.· If you work here long enough, you'll have the butcher's blues just like me.
  4. A musical form, of African-American origin, generally featuring an eight-bar or twelve-bar blues structure and using the blues scale. (countable, uncountable) · Many great blues musicians came from the Mississippi Delta region.· A large portion of modern popular music is influenced by the blues.
  5. A musical composition following blues forms. (countable, uncountable) · My next number is a blues in G.
  6. A uniform made principally of a blue fabric, and especially a full dress uniform thus colored. (countable, uncountable) · They marched in their dress blues.
  7. Any of various blue pills sold on the street, mimicking the appearance of prescription painkiller tablets. (countable, slang, uncountable)

Plural blues

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From the library

“‘The defeat of the Light Blues may be entirely attributed to the unfortunate absence of the crack International, Godfrey Staunton, whose want was felt at every instant of the game.
The Return of Sherlock Holmes, p. 120 · C1
Langston Hughes wrote beautiful poetry that perfectly echoed the rhythms of jazz and blues.
The Harlem Renaissance, p. 1 · B2
In the late nineteenth century, rural musicians developed a deeply expressive style known as the blues.
From the Delta to Memphis, p. 1 · C1
As the migration continued farther north to Chicago, the blues underwent a radical transformation to suit the urban environment.
From the Delta to Memphis, p. 1 · C1

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Words, meanings, pronunciations and translations from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 4.0); how common each word is from wordfreq. Made into this dictionary by FluentPlex.