Other forms: blistering, blisters, blistered
A blister is the small bubble of fluid that lifts under your skin where something has rubbed or burned it. New shoes on a long walk, the back of a heel inside a stiff boot, the pad of your thumb after an afternoon with a spade.
Paint blisters too — a windowsill in full sun comes up in bubbles that flake away at a touch. The verb runs both ways: my heels blistered, and the sun blistered the paint. Pills come in a blister pack, the sheet of little domes you push each tablet through. Blistering means fierce: blistering heat, a blistering pace, a blistering attack on the government in the morning papers. And a blister is best left alone, because bursting one opens the skin to infection.
1nounblisterA small bubble of fluid under the skin, raised by rubbing or burning.
“Two miles in and she had a blister on each heel.”
2nouncampA raised bubble on a painted or coated surface.
“The old door is covered in blisters where the varnish lifted.”
3verbblistersTo come up in blisters, or to make something come up in them.
“My hands blistered after an hour of digging.”
Blister came into Middle English from Old French blestre, which the French had taken from a Germanic word. Its relatives all point at swelling and air: Middle Dutch blyster, a swelling, and Old Norse blastr, a blowing. The picture behind the word is something puffed up from inside.
Old French
blestre
Middle English
blister
English, today
blister
From Middle English blister, from Old French blestre, from a gem source. Compare Middle Dutch blyster (“swelling”), Old Norse blastr (“a blowing”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA
Practised in Body & Health