Other forms: blushing, blushes, blushed
To blush is to go red in the face without meaning to — the heat climbing your neck when your name is read out, or when a stranger catches you talking to yourself. The blush is the redness itself.
Embarrassment causes it above all, and so do shame, praise and simply being noticed: she blushed at the compliment and looked at the floor. Say blush WITH the feeling (blushing with shame) or AT the thing (he blushed at the question). Keep it apart from flush, which is redness from heat, drink or anger and covers more of the face. The cosmetic that adds colour to the cheeks is blush, or blusher in Britain. And at first blush is a bookish phrase meaning at first glance, with no red faces involved.
1verbblushTo become red in the face from embarrassment or shame.
“She blushed when the whole table turned to look at her.”
synonyms: colour, redden
2nounreddeningA reddening of the face caused by embarrassment.
“A slow blush crept up his neck and into his ears.”
3nounpowderPowder or cream used to add colour to the cheeks.
“She put on a little blush before opening the door.”
Too few real examples of this word to estimate which sense is commonest.
Blush comes from Old English blysċan, to be red or to shine, and behind it stand Germanic words for a torch or a burning candle — blasǭ, blusjǭ — and a Proto-Indo-European root for brightness. Old Norse blys was a torch and Danish blus a blaze. A blushing face was a face catching light.
Proto-Germanic
*blaskijaną
Old English
blysċan — to be red; shine
Middle English
blusshen
English, today
blush
Built from
From Middle English blusshen, bluschen, blusschen, blisshen, from Old English blysċan (“to be red; shine”), perhaps from Proto-Germanic blaskijaną, from blasǭ (“burning candle; torch”) or alternatively from Proto-Germanic bluskijaną, from blusjǭ (“torch”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European bʰel-. Cognate with Middle Low German blöschen (“to blush”). Compare also Old English blysian (“to burn; blaze”), Dutch blozen (“to blush”), Danish blusse (“to blush”), Old Norse blys (“torch”), Danish blus (“blaze”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA