blue gum
- noun
- /bluː ɡʌm/
- UK
:
eucalipto azul
- Many farmers prefer planting blue gum for its fast growth and quality timber.
- blue gum tree
- blue gum eucalyptus
Examples
-
The blue gum eucalyptus has distinct bluish leaves and is known for its medicinal oil.
-
The courtyard with the rooms surrounding it contained the heat like an oven, a meager patch of shade huddling beside the trunk of the blue gum tree.
Fiction book (1996) -
He was constantly haunted by the atrocities that he had witnessed through the years, and finally, on July 27, 1994, Carter backed his red Nissan truck against a blue gum tree, attached a garden hose to the exhaust pipe, and rolled up the window to his car.
Blog text (16) -
The blue gum tree grows tall and provides shelter for various animals.
Synonyms
13
6.8
A tree, like eucalyptus, that makes sticky sap used in products
11
5.9
A tall Australian tree with leaves used to make oil and wood
1
3.7
A tree that makes a sticky, sweet-smelling sap like eucalyptus
A tall Australian tree with bluish young leaves and oil used in medicine
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning is directly built from the adjective 'blue' (a color) modifying 'gum' (a gum/eucalyptus tree), so it denotes a gum tree with bluish leaves. Color + noun species names are a transparent, cross-linguistic compositional pattern, so a B1 learner who knows both constituents should be able to infer the MWE's meaning.
Etymology
Blue gum comes from a simple picture: the young leaves often look blue, so blue names the colour, and gum was a common name for eucalyptus trees because they give a sticky 'sap'. So blue gum now refers to the tall eucalyptus with bluish young leaves used for wood and oil.