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Glite Dictionary
bluebird of happiness

bluebird of happiness

1 7.9
A sign of perfect happiness and complete joy
  • noun
  • /ˈbluːbɜrd əv ˈhæpɪnəs/
  • Literature
translation icon : pájaro azul de la felicidad
  • The phrase "chasing the bluebird of happiness" signifies the pursuit of ultimate joy and fulfillment.

Examples

  • Many believe that the bluebird of happiness represents the idea that true happiness comes from within.

  • "The bluebird of happiness," he said from his chopping board where the lemon zest was piling up, much more than she would ever use.

    Fiction book (2000)

  • According to the legend, finding the bluebird of happiness will bring you joy and contentment in life.

Surface Forms

bluebird of happiness singular
bluebirds of happiness plural

Morphology

bluebird + of + happiness

The words 'blue'/'bird' and 'happiness' point to a bird associated with joy, so a learner could guess a literal bird linked to happiness, but the conventionalized idiomatic sense — a cultural symbol of perfect or supreme happiness — is not fully predictable from the parts alone. This reliance on cultural/figurative knowledge (and cross-linguistic variation in the motif) makes the phrase partly inferable but not transparently compositional.

Etymology

Bluebird of happiness may come from old folk stories where a bright bluebird appears in spring and people saw it as a sign that good times and joy were coming. That's why the phrase now means 'perfect happiness' or 'true contentment'.