Pronunciations (2)
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/blaɪt/
Pronunciation notes
- General-American
- Received-Pronunciation
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blaɪt
Noun
A diseased condition suffered by a plant; specifically, a complete and rapid chlorosis, browning, then death of plant tissues such as floral organs, leaves, branches, or twigs, especially one caused by a fungus; a mildew, a rust, a smut.
Usage- Countable
- Uncountable
- Examples
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Proceed, inhuman Parent in thy Scorn; / Root up my Trees, vvith Blites deſtroy my Corn; / My Vineyards Ruin, and my Sheepfolds burn.
More examples (3)
As ſudden blights corrupt the ripen'd grain, / And of its verdure ſpoil the mournful plain; / So hapleſs love on blooming features preys, / So hapleſs love deſtroys our peaceful days.
Some there are vvho imagine the moſt deſtructive Blights vvhich attend Fruit-Trees, are produc'd by ſmall Shovvers of Rain, or vvhite Hoar-Froſts falling upon the Bloſſoms of Fruit-trees, vvhich being ſucceeded by cold North or Eaſterly VVinds, or froſty Mornings, are the Occaſion of the frequent Blights vvhich happen in the Spring Seaſon: […]
A blight in 1855–56 set back the industry, many plantations being ruined and then given over to sugar cane. After the blight had disappeared, the plantations were re-established, and prosperity continued for years.
The cause of such a condition, often unseen but believed to be airborne; specifically, a bacterium, a virus, or (especially) a fungus; also, an aphid which attacks fruit trees.
Usage- Countable
- Uncountable
A state of cloudy, humid weather.
Usage- broadly
- Countable
- Uncountable
- Examples
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And the youth stood by thy side and whispered to thee; and from his lips there came a reeking smoke, and in that smoke as in a blight the wings withered up.
A diseased condition of the face or skin; specifically, bleeding under the conjunctiva of the eye, a form of skin rash, or a palsy of the face due to cold.
Usage- broadly
- Countable
- Dated
- Uncountable
Something that impedes development or growth, or spoils any other aspect of life.
Usage- Countable
- Figurative
- Uncountable
- Synonyms
- Examples
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More examples (1)
But a blight had come over my existence, and I only visited these people for the sake of the information they might give me on the subject in which my interest was so terribly profound.
He saw her image in the blight and blackness all around him, not irradiating but deepening the gloom.
She moved about the country like a ghost, gathering herbs in dark loanings, lingering in kirkyairds, and casting a blight on innocent bairns.
A rundown and unsightly condition of an urban area; also, such an area.
Usage- Countable
- Figurative
- specifically
- Uncountable
Verb
To affect the fertility or growth of (a plant) with a blight (noun sense 1.1), especially one caused by a fungus; to blast, to mildew, to smut.
Usage- Transitive
- Synonyms
- Examples
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More examples (1)
But if it happens, as ſometimes it does, that this Vapour bears up along vvith it any noxious mineral Steams, it then blasts Vegetables, eſpecially thoſe vvhich are more young and tender: blights Corn and Fruits: and is ſometimes injurious even to Men vvho chance to be then abroad in the Fields.
In your eye there is death, / There is frost on your breath / Which would blight the plants.
Oh, Love! like the blast of the desert thou blightest / The fairest of flowers with thy venomous breath.
More examples (1)
Much is permitted to the power of spirits, so that, being unseen and unperceived, they appear rather in their effects than in their acts: as when some lurking evil in the air blighteth the fruit or grain in the blossom, killeth it in the blade, woundeth it in its full growth, and when the atmosphere tainted in some secret way poureth over the earth its pestilential vapours.
To affect (a body part) with a disease.
Usage- broadly
- Dated
- Transitive
- Examples
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[B]lighted be the tongue / That names thy name without the honour due!
To impede the development or growth of (an aspect of life); to damage, to ruin, to spoil.
Usage- Figurative
- Transitive
- Synonyms
- Examples
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Those obscene tattoos are going to blight your job prospects.
More examples (3)
[T]o be too far in loue vvith vvorldly felicity, that ſo blighteth goodneſſe and pietie, vvhat is it but vvith the Thurij to make an idoll of the vvinde, and to be in loue vvith blaſting.
The lady Blast, you must understand, has such a particular malignity in her whisper, that it blights like an easterly wind, and withers every reputation that it breathes upon.
Slavery, in all thy forms—mental and bodily—we detest thee! like the Upas-tree, thou blightest every thing within they poisonous influence; like the simoom, thou blastest all, wherever thy pestiferous breath reaches.
Even he, cold and indifferent as he is, shall repent! I shall blight his hopes, as he has blighted mine.
More examples (6)
Then should we see depravity, impiety, drunkenness, theft, murder, and a long train of nameless sins against the natural affections and repulsions of mankind, overhanging the devoted spots, and creeping on, to blight the innocent and spread contagion among the pure.
Bitter tears came now at the delusion which had blighted her young years: […]
I need hardly explain to you that if you persist in this refusal you and I cannot continue to live together as man and wife. All my hopes and prospects in life will be blighted by such a separation.
And thus she would see him when she looked out upon the glad morning, and oh! would she drop one little tear upon his poor, lifeless form, would she heave one little sigh to see a bright young life so rudely blighted, so untimely cut down?
Among the poorest of China’s provinces and autonomous regions, Gansu has largely been spared the overdevelopment that blights the country’s richer districts.
Before the Internet it was television. And, if not that, it was radio, films, or games. All have taken their turn as the popular bogeyman, blighting the minds of the young.
Of a plant: to suffer blight (noun sense 1.1).
Usage- Intransitive
- Examples
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This vine never blights.
Noun
a state or condition being blighted
- Broader terms
any plant disease resulting in withering without rotting
- Broader terms
Verb
cause to suffer a blight
- Synonyms
- Examples
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Too much rain may blight the garden with mold