Other forms: blessed, blessing, blesses
To bless is to ask holy protection and favour for somebody. Bless the congregation, God bless you, a blessing.
In religious use a priest blesses people, food and buildings, and the gesture is usually a sign of the cross. Bless you is said after a sneeze for reasons long forgotten. Bless as an exclamation, and bless her, are warm British ways of expressing affection, sometimes condescendingly. Note blessing, blessed; and a blessing in disguise, meaning something bad that turns out well.
1verbblessTo ask holy protection and favour for somebody.
“At the end of the wedding, the priest blessed the young couple.”
2verbexpressTo express affection, in British informal use.
“Bless him, he's made me a cup of tea without being asked.”
Too few real examples of this word to estimate which sense is commonest.
bless is an act of consecration.
Old English bletsian meant to consecrate with blood, from blod. The word was pressed into service to translate the Latin benedicere, and the blood was forgotten entirely.
Proto-Indo-European
*bʰleh₃- — to bloom
Proto-Germanic
*blōþą — blood
Proto-West Germanic
*blōdisōn — to sprinkle, mark or hallow with blood
Old English
bletsian — to consecrate (with blood)
Middle English
blessen
English, today
bless
From Middle English blessen, from Old English bletsian (“to consecrate (with blood)”), from Proto-West Germanic blōdisōn (“to sprinkle, mark or hallow with blood”), from Proto-Germanic blōþą (“blood”), of uncertain origin, possibly from Proto-Indo-European bʰleh₃- (“to bloom”). Cognate with Old Norse bleza (“to bless”) (whence Icelandic blessa), Old English blēdan (“to bleed”). More at bleed.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA