BLIGHT • DICCIONARIO INGLES.COM • Definition of Blight

Add this Dictionary
to your website!
See more options...

/blaɪt/ Listen

noun

Blight n.

Mildew; decay; anything nipping or blasting; applied as a general name to various injuries or diseases of plants, causing the whole or a part to wither, whether occasioned by insects, fungi, or atmospheric influences.

The act of blighting, or the state of being blighted; a withering or mildewing, or a stoppage of growth in the whole or a part of a plant, etc.

That which frustrates one's plans or withers one's hopes; that which impairs or destroys. "A blight seemed to have fallen over our fortunes."

(Zool.) A downy species of aphis, or plant louse, destructive to fruit trees, infesting both the roots and branches; also applied to several other injurious insects.

pl. A rashlike eruption on the human skin. (U. S.)

verb

Blight v. t. (past & past part. blighted; pres. part. blighting)

To affect with blight; to blast; to prevent the growth and fertility of. "(This vapor) blasts vegetables, blights corn and fruit, and is sometimes injurious even to man."

Hence: To destroy the happiness of; to ruin; to mar essentially; to frustrate; as, to blight one's prospects. "Seared in heart and lone and blighted."

Blight v. i. To be affected by blight; to blast; as, this vine never blights.

See images of 'Blight'

Etymology of 'Blight'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

Share |

"Blight" Quotes from Famous Books

... eclipsing body. Of course there is no suggestion here that these darknesses may have been eclipses. My own acceptance is that if in the nineteenth century anyone had uttered such a thought as that, he'd have felt the blight of a Dominant; that Materialistic Science was a jealous god, excluding, as works of the devil, all utterances against the seemingly uniform, regular, periodic; that to defy him would have brought on—withering by ridicule—shrinking ...

— The Book of the Damned • Charles Fort

... entwine together, sometimes fostering, sometimes crushing each other. Out of the remains of the dead arises a new generation, with an increase of vital impulse. It seems as though the ice-crowned Andes looked down with envy on the luxuriant vegetation of the forests, and sought to blight it by sending down cold, nightly winds. The low temperature of the night counteracts that extreme development which the humidity of the soil and the great heat of the day promote. But what the vegetation ...

— Travels in Peru, on the Coast, in the Sierra, Across the Cordilleras and the Andes, into the Primeval Forests • J. J. von Tschudi

... The 'apple-blight' of the Calvados must obviously have extended into the neighbouring department of the Eure, or at least into the great and busy arrondissement of Bernay, which gave the Monarchist candidate in September 1889 the tremendous majority of 5,550 votes in a total ...

— France and the Republic - A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces - During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 • William Henry Hurlbert

... of the imagination, or a reality from without—or her, with whom I fondly hoped to have travelled the weary road of life. Friends approved—fortune smiled—one little month, and we should have been one; but it pleased Him, to whom in my present frame of mind I dare not look up, to blight my beautiful flower, to canker my rose—bud, to change the fair countenance of my Elizabeth, and send her away. She drooped and died, even like that pale flower under the scorching sun; and I was driven forth to worship Mammon, ...

— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott

... six," answered Edward; "nor dare I reckon on the life of the frail babe that England hailed yesterday as my heir. I sometimes deem that the blight of broken covenants ...

— The Prince and the Page • Charlotte M. Yonge

More quotes...