blithesomeness 
blithesomeness (bliTH'- or blith'sum-nes), M. 
[< blithesome + -ness.] The quality of being 
blithesome; gaiety. 
A glad blithesomeness belonged to her, potent to conquer 
even ill health and suffering. New Princeton Rev., II. 78. 
Blitum (bli'tum), n. [L., < Gr. fik'nav, a cer- 
tain plant used as a salad.] A genus of plants, 
natural order Chenopodiaceoe, now included in 
Chenopodium. See blite^. 
blivet, adv. A Middle English contraction of 
bcliveZ. Chaucer. 
blizzard (bliz'ard), n. [An expressive word, 
originating in the United States, appar. at first 
locally on the Atlantic coast (see first quot.), 
and carried thence to the West, where, in a 
new application, it came into general notice 
and use in the winter of 1880-81. The word 
is evidently a popular formation, and is prob. 
based, with the usual imitative variation ob- 
servable in such formations, on what to the 
popular consciousness is the common root of 
blaze, blast, blow (the latter notions at least be- 
ing appar. present in the familiar third sense). 
In the orig. sense a blizzard is essentially a 
" blazer," of which word, indeed, it may be con- 
sidered a manipulated form: see blaze 1 , and cf. 
blaze%, blast, bluster.'] 1. [Appar. the earliest 
sense, but not recorded, except in the figura- 
tive use, until recently.] A general discharge 
of guns ; a rattling volley ; a general "blazing 
away." See extract. 
Along the Atlantic coast, among the gunners who often 
hunt in parties stationed near together behind blinds, 
waiting for the flocks of migratory birds, the word bliz- 
zard means a general discharge of all the guns, nearly but 
not quite together a rattling volley, differing from a 
broadside in not being quite simultaneous. This use of 
the word is familiar to every longshore man from Sandy 
Hook to Currituck, and goes back at least forty years, as 
my own memory attests. . . . The longshore men of 
forty years ago were all sailors, and many of them had 
served in the navy. That they may have learned the word 
there is rendered probable by the rather notable accuracy 
with which they always distinguished between a blizzard 
and a broadside. This points to a nautical origin of the 
word, though it made no progress in general use till it 
struck the Western imagination as a term for that con- 
vulsion of the elements for which "snow-storm," with 
whatever descriptive epithet, was no adequate name, and 
the keen ear of the newspaper reporter caught it and gave 
it currency as " reportorial " English. 
2V. Y. Evening Post, March 24, 1887. 
Hence 2. Figuratively, a volley; a sudden 
(oratorical) attack; an overwhelming retort. 
[This seems to be the sense in the following passage, where 
Bartlett explains the word (" not known in the Eastern 
States," he says) as " a poser."] 
A gentleman at dinner asked me for a toast ; and sup- 
posing he meant to have some fun at my expense, I con- 
cluded to go ahead, and give himandhis likes a blizzard. 
David Crockett, Tour Down East, p. 16. 
3. A gale or hurricane accompanied by intense 
cold and dry, driving snow, common in winter 
on the great plains of the States and Territories 
of the northwestern United States east of the 
Rocky Mountains, especially Dakota, and in 
Manitoba in British America, it is described in 
the "American Meteorological Journal" as "a mad rush- 
ing combination of wind and snow which neither man nor 
beast could face." 
Whew ! how the wind howls ; there must be a terrible 
blizzard west of us, and how ill-prepared are most frontier 
homes for such severe cold. Chicago Advance, Jan. 8, 1880. 
blizzardly (bliz'ard-li), a. Blizzard-like ; re- 
sembling a blizzard. [Rare.] 
bloak, . See bloke. 
bloat 1 (blot), a. [Formerly also blote, < ME. 
blote (uncertain), possibly < AS. bldt, pale, livid 
(see Hate 1 ), but prob. a var, or parallel form 
of bloute (see bloatf) = Icel. blautr, soaked, = 
Sw. blot = Dan. blod, soft, = Norw. blaut, soft, 
wet; cf. Icel. blautr fiskr, fresh (soft) fish, op- 
posed to hardhr fiskr, dried (hard) fish, = Sw. 
blotfisk, soaked fish, = Norw. blotfisk; Icel. 
blotna = Sw. blotna = Norw. blotna, to soften. 
See blate 1 and bloater, and cf. 6toa( 2 .] Cured 
by smoking: as, a bloat herring. See bloater. 
Lay you an old courtier on the coals like a sausage, or a 
bloat herring. B. Jonson, Mercury Vindicated. 
bloat 1 (blot), v. t. [Appar. < 6/00*1, a .] TO cure 
by smoking, as herrings. Formerly spelled blote. 
I have more smoke in my mouth than would blote 
A hundred herrings. Fletcher, Island Princess, ii. 6. 
bloat 2 (blot), a. [Earlier blotct (as orig. in the 
passage cited from Shakspere, where bloat is 
an 18th century emendation, though it occurs 
elsewhere in 17th century), blowte, bloute, prob. 
< Icel. blautr = Sw. blot, soft, etc. : see bloat 1 , 
and ef. Mate 1 . The word is now regarded as 
pp. of bloat*, .] Puffed; swollen; turgid: as 
"the bloat king," Shak., Hamlet, iii. 4. [Now 
only in rare literary use.] 
590 
bloat 2 (blot), v. [< bloat^, a.] I. trans. To 
make turgid or swollen, as with air, water, etc. ; 
cause to swell, as with a dropsical humor ; in- 
flate ; puff up ; hence, make vain, conceited, etc. 
His rude essays 
Encourage him, and bloat him up with praise. 
Dryden, 1'rol. to Circe. 
And then began to bloat himself, and ooze 
All over with the fat affectionate smile 
That makes the widow lean. Tennyson, Sea Dreams. 
H. intrans. To become swollen; be puffed 
out or dilated ; dilate. 
If a person of firm constitution begins to bloat. 
Arbuthnot. 
bloated (blo'ted), p. a. [Pp. of bloatf, v.] 1. 
Swollen; puffed up; inflated; overgrown, so 
as to be unwieldy, especially from over-indul- 
) in eating and drinking; p 
gence i 
" a bloated mass," Goldsmith. 
pampered: as, 
Grotesque monsters, half bestial, half human, droppim; 
with wine, bloated with gluttony, and reeling in obscene 
dances. Macatday, Milton. 
2. Connected with or arising from self-indul- 
gence : as, ' ' bloated slumber," Mickle, A Sonnet. 
3. Inordinately swollen in amount, posses- 
sions, self-esteem, etc.; puffed up with pride 
or wealth: as, a bloated estate; bloated capi- 
talists: a bloated pretender. 
bloatedness (blo'ted-nes), n. [< bloated + 
-ness.] The state of being bloated ; turgidity; 
an inflated state of the tissues of the body; 
dilatation from any morbid cause. Arbuthnot. 
bloater (blo'ter), . [< bloat 1 + -er 1 .] An 
English name for a herring which has been 
steeped for a short time, slightly salted, and 
Sartially smoke-dried, but not split open. 
Ob (blob), n. [Also bleb, Sc. bleb, bleib, blab, 
blob; cf. blobber, blubber.] 1. A small globe of 
liquid; a dewdrop; a blister; a bubble; a small 
lump, splotch, or daub. 
Hawed rubies and emeralds, which have no value as 
precious stones, but only as barbaric blobs of colour. 
Birdwood, Indian Arts, II. 9. 
2. The bag of a honey-bee. [Prov. Eng.] 3f. 
The under lip. Halliwell. [Rare.] 4. Acot- 
toid fish, Uranidea richardsoni, a kind of mill- 
er's-thumb On the blob, by word of mouth. [Slang.] 
blobber (blob'er), n. Same as blubber. 
blobber-lip (blob'er-lip), n. Same as blubber-lip. 
His blobber-lips and beetle-brows commend. 
Dryden, tr. of Juvenal's Satires, iii. 
blobber-lipped (blob'er-lipt), a. Same as blub- 
ber-lipped. 
blobby (blob'i), a. [< blob + -i/ 1 .] Like a 
blob ; abounding in blobs. 
blob-kite (blob'klt), . A local English name 
of the burbot. 
blob-lipped (blob'lipt), a. [See blob.] Same 
as blubber-lipped. 
blob-talet (blob'tal), n. A telltale ; a blabber. 
These blob-tales could find no other news to keep their 
tongues in motion. Bp. Socket, Abp. Williams, ii. 67. 
block* (blok), n. [< ME. blok, a block (of wood) ; 
not in AS., but borrowed from LG. or OF. : MD. 
bloc, block, D. blok = MLG. block, LG. blok = 
OHG. bloh, MHG. block, G. block = Sw. block = 
Norw. blolck = Dan. blok (= Icel. blokk, Haldor- 
sen), > ML. blocus, OF. and F. bloc; all in the 
general sense of ' block, log, lump, mass,' but 
confused more or less with the forms cited un- 
der block%. There are similar Celtic forms : W. 
floe, a block, = Gael, ploc, a round mass, blud- 
geon, block, stump of a tree, = Ir. ploc, a 
bung, blocan, a little block, perhaps akin to 
blogh, Olr. blog, a fragment, from same root as 
E. break and fragment (see plug); but the rela- 
tion of these to the Teut. forms is uncertain. 
The senses of block 1 and block 2 run into each 
other, and some identify the words.] 1. Any 
solid mass of matter, usually with one or more 
plane or approximately plane faces: as, a block 
of wood, stone, or ice ; sometimes, specifically, 
a log of wood. 
Now all pur neighbours' chimneys smoke, 
And Christmas Modes are burning. Wither. 
What sculpture is to a block of marble, education is to 
an human soul. Spectator, No. 215. 
2. A solid mass of wood the upper surface of 
which is used for some specific purpose, in 
particular (a) The large piece of wood on which a butcher 
chops meat, or on which fire-wood is split. 
Hard by, a flesher on a block had laid his whittle down. 
Macaulay, Virginia. 
(b) The piece of wood on which is placed the neck of a per- 
son condemned to be decapitated. 
The noble heads which have been brought to the block. 
Everett. 
Slave ! to the block ! or I, or they, 
Shall face the judgment-seat this day ! 
Scott, Kokeby, vt 31. 
block 
(e) A piece of hard wood prepared for cutting by an en- 
graver, (d) The stand on which a slave was placed when 
being sold by auction, (e) In falconry, the perch whereon 
a bird of prey is kept. 
3. A mass of wood or stone used in mounting 
and dismounting ; a horse-block. 4. A mold 
or piece on which something is shaped, or placed 
to make it keep in shape. In particular (a) The 
wooden mold on which a hat is formed ; hence, some- 
times, the shape or style of a hat, or the hat itself. 
He wears his faith but as the fashion of his hat ; it ever 
changes with the next black. Shak., Much Ado, i. 1. 
The blocks for his heade alters faster than the Feltmaker 
can fitte him, and thereupon we are called in scorne Block- 
heades. Dekker, Seven Deadly Sins, p. 37. 
(!>) A wooden head for a wig ; a barber's block ; hence, 
sometimes, the wig itself. 
A beautiful golden wig (the Duchess never liked me to 
play with her hair) was on a block close by. 
Bulwer, Pelham, xxiii. 
5. A person with no more sense or life than a 
block ; a blockhead ; a stupid fellow. 
What tongueless blocks were they ! 
Shak., Rich. III., iii. 7. 
6. In ship-building, one of the pieces of timber, 
or supports constructed from such pieces, upon 
which the keel is laid. 
" Thus," said he, " will we build this ship I 
Lay square the blocks upon the slip. " 
Longfellow, Building of the Ship. 
7. The solid metal stamp used by bookbinders 
for impressing a design on a book-cover. 8. 
A piece of wood fitted into the angle formed by 
the meeting edges of two other pieces. 9. A 
wooden rubber covered with thick felt, used 
in polishing marble. 10. A piece of wood or 
metal serving as a support, (a) In a sawmill, one 
of the frames supporting and feeding the log to the saw. 
(b) In vehicles, a piece, generally carved or ornamented, 
placed over or under the springs of a carriage, (c) In 
printing, the piece on which a stereotype plate is fastened 
to make it type-high. 
11. A mechanical contrivance consisting of 
one or more grooved pulleys mounted in a cas- 
ing or shell, which is furnished with a hook, 
eye, or strap by which it may bo attached : it is 
i, a, single and double blocks with rope strap ; 3, 4, double and 
single blocks with irOD strap ; 5, metallic block ; 6. snatch-block ; 7, 
secret block ; 8, clump-block ; o, tail-block ; 10, fiddle-block. 
used to transmit power, or change the direction 
of motion, by means of a rope or chain passing 
round the movable pulleys. Blocks are single, 
double, treble, or fourfold, according as the number of 
sheaves or pulleys is one, two, three, or four. A running 
block is attached to the object to be raised or moved ; a 
standing block is fixed to some permanent support. Blocks 
also receive different names from their shape, purpose, 
or mode of application. Those to which the name dead- 
et/es has been given are not pulleys, being unprovided with 
sheaves. Many of the blocks used in ships are named after 
the ropes or chains which are rove through them : as, bow- 
line blocks, clue-line and clue-garnet blocks. They are made 
of either wood or metal. See clue-garnet, and cut under 
cat-block. 
12. A connected mass of buildings: as, a block 
of houses. 13. A portion of a city inclosed 
by streets, whether occupied by buildings or 
consisting of vacant lots. 
The new city was laid out in rectangular blocks, each 
block containing thirty building lots. Such an average 
block, comprising 282 houses and covering 9 acres of 
ground, exists in Oxford Street. It forms a compact 
square mass. Quarterly Jtev. 
14. On the stock-exchange, a large number of 
shares massed together and bought or sold in 
a lump Antifriction block. See '//><>/;,,. Be- 
tween the beetle and the block. See beetle^. Block 
and block, the position of two blocks of a tackle when 
drawn close to each other. Also called tin blocks. The 
act of drawing the blocks apart is called fleeting the 
purchase. Block-and-cross bond. See (xmdi. Block 
and tackle, the pulley-blocks and ropes used for hoist- 
ing. Block brake. See brakes. Block cornices and 
entablatures, ornamental features, corresponding in 
position to classical cornices and entablatures, in archi- 
tectural elevations not composed of the regular orders. 
