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Glite Dictionary
🎸 A music style 😔 A sad feeling
blues

blues

85 3.4
A style of music with a sad sound, often with guitar and soulful singing
  • noun
  • /bluːz/
translation icon : blues
  • Clarksdale, Mississippi, is home to the Delta Blues Museum and many other blues-related attractions.
  • a blues band
  • jazz and blues
  • Delta blues

Never was Movie Star Blues a more appropriate song.

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Examples

  • Our opening tune was "St. Louis Blues," and we played it with gusto.

    Fiction book (1993)

  • Bob Dylan's "Subterranean Homesick Blues" blares out of one of the kids' transistor radios.

    Fiction book (2001)

  • You know, you loved the Ladies Sings the Blues film with Diana Ross.

  • Some of your famous recordings include "St. Louis Blues" and "Potato Head Blues."

    Academic text (2000)

  • Playin' at this club, Mama Rose's Blues Lounge on the West Side of Chicago.

    Animal Factory (2000)

  • As Willie Dixon so aptly put it, "Blues is the roots, the rest is the fruits."

    Academic text (2009)

  • We added three vocalists to sing "I've Got the Blues" and a trumpet soloist to play along with them.

    Academic text (2008)

  • The blues is a music genre that expresses deep emotions and often tells stories of hardship.

  • Many artists have influenced the blues, creating a rich tradition of soulful music.

  • She enjoys listening to blues records while relaxing on the porch in the evening.

Idioms

to have the blues
3 7.0

Feel sad and a little down

to cry the blues
  • Informal
1 7.5

To feel sad and complain to others

to wake up with the blues
  • Informal
8.4

To feel sad in the morning for no clear reason

Compounds

rhythm and blues
13 3.0

Popular American music that mixes blues and jazz sounds

dress blues
  • Jargon
5 6.1

A formal military uniform worn for ceremonies and official events

blues scale
  • Specialized
5.0

A group of notes musicians use to make the typical jazz and blues sound

rhythm and blues musician
4.2

A person who sings or plays songs that mix jazz, blues, and gospel

How Lively

bebop
16 8.2
swing
60 4.8
Dixieland
7.0
to jazz
1 4.2
blues
85 3.4
ballad
  • Literature
62 3.7

Surface Forms

blues singular
blues plural

Morphology

blues = blue (semi-transparent) = blue + s

The genre name derives from 'blue' (sadness) + plural '-s'; learners who know 'blue' meaning sadness or the idiom 'the blues' may make the connection, but the music-genre sense as a plural noun is partly idiomatic and not fully predictable.

Etymology

Blues (music) comes from African American songs of the early 20th century that told of hard times and being 'sad', and from the color blue which people long used to mean 'sad'. Musicians often used special 'blue notes' that sound a little lower, so the music itself feels mournful and matches the name.