blaze

• IPA^(key): /bleɪz/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -eɪz

From Middle English blase, from Old English blæse, blase (“firebrand, torch, lamp, flame”), from Proto-West Germanic *blasā, from Proto-Germanic *blasǭ (“torch”), from Proto-Indo-European *bʰel- (“to shine, be white”).

Cognate with Low German blas (“burning candle, torch, fire”), Middle High German blas (“candle, torch, flame”). Compare Dutch bles (“blaze”), German Blesse (“blaze, mark on an animal's forehead”), Swedish bläs (“blaze”).

blaze (plural blazes)

1. A fire, especially a fast-burning fire producing a lot of flames and light.
   • 1907 August, Robert W[illiam] Chambers, chapter III, in The Younger Set, New York, N.Y.: D. Appleton & Company, OCLC 24962326:

     Long after his cigar burnt bitter, he sat with eyes fixed on the blaze. When the flames at last began to flicker and subside, his lids fluttered, then drooped; but he had lost all reckoning of time when he opened them again to find Miss Erroll in furs and ball-gown kneeling on the hearth and heaping kindling on the coals, […].

2. Intense, direct light accompanied with heat.

   to seek shelter from the blaze of the sun

   • 1671, John Milton, “Samson Agonistes, […]”, in Paradise Regain’d. A Poem. In IV Books. To which is Added, Samson Agonistes, London: […] J. M[acock] for John Starkey […], OCLC 228732398, page 13:

     O dark, dark, dark, amid the blaze of noon,

3. The white or lighter-coloured markings on a horse's face.

   The palomino had a white blaze on its face.

4. (color) A high-visibility orange colour, typically used in warning signs and hunters' clothing.

   blaze:  

   Synonyms: safety orange, international orange

5. A bursting out, or active display of any quality.

   Synonym: outburst

   • c. 1602, William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Troylus and Cressida”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, OCLC 606515358, [Act IV, scene v]:

     his blaze of wrath

   • 1671, John Milton, “The Fourth Book”, in Paradise Regain’d. A Poem. In IV Books. To which is Added, Samson Agonistes, London: […] J. M[acock] for John Starkey […], OCLC 228732398, page 56:

     For what is glory but the blaze of fame?

6. A spot made on trees by chipping off a piece of the bark, usually as a surveyor's mark.
   • 1855, Baynard Rush Hall, The New Purchase: Or, Early Years in the Far West - Page 71‎:

     The blaze is a longitudinal cut on trees at convenient intervals, made by cutting off the bark with an axe or hatchet: three blazes in a perpendicular line on the same tree indicating a legislative road, the single blaze, a settlement or neighbourhood road.

7. (poker) A hand consisting of five face cards.

From Middle English blasen, from Middle English blase (“torch”). See above.

blaze (third-person singular simple present blazes, present participle blazing, simple past and past participle blazed)

1. (intransitive) To be on fire, especially producing bright flames.

   The campfire blazed merrily.

2. (intransitive) To send forth or reflect a bright light; shine like a flame.
   • 1793, William Wordsworth, Descriptive Sketches

     And far and wide the icy summit blaze.

   • 1913, Joseph C. Lincoln, chapter 1, in Mr. Pratt's Patients:

     Pretty soon I struck into a sort of path […]. It twisted and turned, […] and opened out into a big clear space like a lawn. And, back of the lawn, was a big, old-fashioned house, with piazzas stretching in front of it, and all blazing with lights.

3. (intransitive, poetic) To be conspicuous; shine brightly a brilliancy (of talents, deeds, etc.).
4. (transitive, rare) To set in a blaze; burn.
5. (transitive) To cause to shine forth; exhibit vividly; be resplendent with.
6. (transitive, only in the past participle) To mark with a white spot on the face (as a horse).
7. (transitive) To set a mark on (as a tree, usually by cutting off a piece of its bark).
   • 1887, Harriet W. Daly, Digging, Squatting, and Pioneering Life in the Northern Territory of South Australia, page 105:

     They had, just as we expected they would, cut Stuart's tracks, and had actually slept one night in one of his old camping-places, finding the trees "blazed" and marked "S.," as were all the trees at intervals along his line of exploration.

   • 1912, Arthur Conan Doyle, The Lost World […], London; New York, N.Y.: Hodder and Stoughton, OCLC 1029993343:

     We drew them up, therefore, and concealed them among the bushes, blazing a tree with our axes, so that we should find them again.

8. (transitive) To indicate or mark out (a trail, especially through vegetation) by a series of blazes.

   The guide blazed his way through the undergrowth.

9. (transitive, figurative) To set a precedent for the taking-on of a challenge; lead by example.

   Darwin blazed a path for the rest of us.

10. (figurative) To be furiously angry; to speak or write in a rage.
    • 1929, Reginald Charles Barker, The Hair-trigger Brand (page 160)

      "I'll die before I let my grandad pay you that much money!" blazed the girl.

11. (slang) To smoke marijuana.
    • 2005, “We Major”, in Late Registration, performed by Kanye West ft. Really Doe & Nas:

      I take a hit of that chronic, it got me stuck / But really what's amazing is how I keep blazing

From Middle English blasen (“to blow”), from Old English *blǣsan, from Proto-West Germanic *blāsan, from Proto-Germanic *blēsaną (“to blow”). Related to English blast.

blaze (third-person singular simple present blazes, present participle blazing, simple past and past participle blazed)

1. (transitive) To blow, as from a trumpet
2. (transitive) To publish; announce publicly
3. (transitive) To disclose; bewray; defame
4. (transitive, heraldry) To blazon

blaze (plural blazes)

1. Publication; the act of spreading widely by report

• blaze at OneLook Dictionary Search
• blaze in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911

• Elbaz, Zabel

From blahý +‎ -e.

• IPA^(key): [ˈblazɛ]
• Rhymes: -azɛ
• Hyphenation: bla‧ze

blaze (comparative blažeji, superlative nejblažeji)

1. blissfully, happily
   • 1868, Emanuel František Züngel, “Triolet”, in Básně‎, page 20–21:

     Pak budu zas tiše, blaze žíti,
     zapomenuv na to, co mne hnětlo;
     mír a pokoj budu v duši míti.

     (please add an English translation of this quote)

• blaženě
• šťastně
• mile

• blaze in Příruční slovník jazyka českého, 1935–1957
• blaze in Slovník spisovného jazyka českého, 1960–1971, 1989
• blaze in Internetová jazyková příručka

• IPA^(key): [ˈblaːzə]

• Audio

  (file)

blaze

1. (archaic) singular present subjunctive of blazen

• bazel

From Old Frisian *blēsa, from Proto-West Germanic *blāsan, from Proto-Germanic *blēsaną.

• IPA^(key): /ˈblazə/

blaze

1. to blow

• “blaze (I)”, in Wurdboek fan de Fryske taal (in Dutch), 2011

• bleaze, blease

From Middle English blase, from Old English blase, from Proto-West Germanic *blasā.

blaze

1. faggot

• Jacob Poole (1867), William Barnes, editor, A Glossary, With some Pieces of Verse, of the old Dialect of the English Colony in the Baronies of Forth and Bargy, County of Wexford, Ireland, London: J. Russell Smith, page 26