blake

See also: Blake and blakė

English

Etymology

From Middle English blak, blac (“pale”), from Old English blāc (“pale, pallid, wan, livid; bright, shining, glittering, flashing”) and Old Norse bleikr (“pale; yellow, pink; any non-red warm color”); both from Proto-Germanic *blaikaz (“pale; shining”). Compare Scots bleg (“light, drab”). More at bleak.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /bleɪk/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -eɪk

Adjective

blake (comparative blaker or more blake, superlative blakest or most blake) (UK dialectal, Northern England, poetic)

1. (Can we verify⁽⁺⁾ this sense?) Pale, pallid; wan; sallow; of a sickly hue.
2. Yellow, as butter or cheese.
   • 1747, Josiah Relph, A Miscellany of Poems,: Consisting of Original Poems, Translations, Pastorals in the Cumberland Dialect, Familiar Epistles, Fables, Songs, and Epigrams, page 13:

     White shows the rye, the big of big of blaker hue, […]

   • 1859, Hensleigh Wedgwood, A Dictionary of English Etymology: A - D, page 184:

     […] the E. blake (identical with AS. blac, G. bleich, pale) is provincially used in the sense of yellow. As blake as a paigle, as yellow as a cowslip.

   • 1876, Elizabeth Lynn Linton, Lizzie Lorton of Greyrigg: A Novel ..., page 271:

     Miss Lizzie's ower dark for my fancy. I mind nowt aboot your dark lasses - as blake as marygowds an' as black as corbies.

   • 1911, Richard Blakeborough, Wit, Character, Folklore & Customs of the North Riding of Yorkshire, page 340:

     Noo, that's a bit o' neyce blake butter. Thoo nobbut leeaks blakeish.

3. (Can we verify⁽⁺⁾ this sense?) Bleak, cold; bare, naked.

Synonyms

• (sickly pale): see also Thesaurus:pallid

Anagrams

• Balke, Kabel, Kaleb, bleak

Dutch

Pronunciation

• Audio

  (file)

Verb

blake

1. (dated or formal) singular present subjunctive of blaken

Anagrams

• balke, kabel

German

Pronunciation

• Audio

  (file)

Verb

blake

1. inflection of blaken:
   1. first-person singular present
   2. first/third-person singular subjunctive I
   3. singular imperative

Middle English

Etymology 1

From Old English blāc (“pale”).

Adjective

blake

1. pale, pallid, yellowish
   • 1205, Lay, quoted in the NED:

     [1888] Whil heo weoren blake […] whil heo weoren ræde. [19890] Ænne stunde he wes blac […] while he wes reod.

     (please add an English translation of this quotation)

   • 1400, St. Alexius (Cott.), 236:

     so was he lene and blake of hewe.

     (please add an English translation of this quotation)

   • 1420, Anturs Arth. li: *: Thayre blees weren so blake. Alle blake was thayre blees.
   • 1430, Pallad. on Husb., I, 187:

     The vynes blake awaie thowe take, eke greene And tender vynes kytte.

     (please add an English translation of this quotation)

   • 1530, Palsgr., 306: *: Blake, wan of colour.

Etymology 2

Adjective

blake

1. Alternative form of blak

Etymology 3

Verb

blake

1. Alternative form of bloken