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true blue
1noun
- a nonfading blue dye or pigment.
- a person who is true-blue.
- (in the 17th century) the color adopted by the Covenanters in contradistinction to the royal red.
true-blue
2[ troo-bloo ]
adjective
- unwaveringly loyal or faithful; staunch; unchangingly true.
true-blue
adjective
- unwaveringly or staunchly loyal, esp to a person, a cause, etc
noun
- a staunch royalist or Conservative
Word History and Origins
Origin of true blue1
Origin of true blue2
Idioms and Phrases
Loyal, faithful, as in You can count on her support; she's true blue . This expression alludes to the idea of blue being the color of constancy, but the exact allusion is disputed. One theory holds it alludes to the unchanging blue sky, another to the fastness of a blue dye that will not run. Blue has been the identifying color of various factions in history. In the mid-1600s the Scottish Covenanters, who pledged to uphold Presbyterianism, were called true blue (as opposed to red , the color of the royalists). In the 1800s the same term came to mean “staunchly Tory,” and in America, “politically sound.”Example Sentences
“I think my favorite two words are ‘true blue,’” Stillman tells me.
Candidates like Scott Walker are true-blue conservatives, but also, as Robinson, who is African-American, sees it, too white.
Police across the capital have been ordered to cancel any leave they had planned for ‘Operation True Blue’.
A spokesman for Number Ten, however, claims the True Blue codename has been in use since Labour was in power.
He was derided as a true-blue conservative with less charisma than his sweater vest.
True blue Presbyterianism rose in contrast with milder colours of Ecclesiasticism.
Little True Blue had, therefore, at a very early age, to encounter “the battle and the breeze.”
Billy True Blue was all this time rapidly growing in size and strength, and in knowledge of affairs in general.
True Blue had not been long on board the Ruby before he became a favourite with most of his new shipmates.
True Blue instinctively discovered that he was a braggart and inclined to be a bully.
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Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
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