Your ShelfYour Projects
Webster's Dictionary (1865)

3 entries under this word

Blaze

Blāze, n.

noun

n. [A-S. blæse, blaze, flame, from blæsan, to blow, flare, M. H. Ger. blās, taper, candle.]

  1. The stream of light and heat from any body when burning, proceeding from the combustion of inflammable gas; flame. “To heaven the blaze up-rolled.” Croly.
  2. Light, as from flame; expanded light.

O dark, dark, dark, amid the blaze of noon. Milton.

  1. A white spot on the forehead or face of a horse.
  2. A spot made on trees by chipping off a piece of the bark. [Amer.]

Three blazes in a perpendicular line on the same tree indicating a legislative road, the single blaze a settlement or neighborhood road. Carlton. 5. A bursting out, or active display of any quality; wide diffusion and display. “The blaze of riot.” “The blaze of wrath.” Shak. For what is glory but the blaze of fame? Milton. Like blazes, furiously. [Low.] “The horses did along like blazes tear.” Poem in Essex dialect. ☞ — In low language, in the U. S., blazes is frequently used to express something in extreme, or very bad; as, blue as blazes. Neal. Syn. — BLAZE, FLAME. A blaze and a flame are both produced by burning gas. We call it a blaze in so far as it gives light, and a flame in so far as it gives heat; the one shines, and the other burns. Every house in the street was in a blaze on the night of the illumination; every house was in a flame on the night of the fire. What groans of men shall fill the martial field! How fierce a blaze his flaming pile shall yield! Dryden. The wild confusion and the swarthy glow Of flames on high, and torches from below. Byron.

Blāze, v. i.

verbintransitive

[imp. & p. p. BLAZED; p. pr. & vb. n. BLAZING.]

  1. To shine with flame; as, the fire blazes.
  2. To send forth or show a bright and expanded light. “And far and wide the icy summit blazed.” Wordsworth.
  3. To be conspicuous.

Blāze, v. t.

verbtransitive

v. t. 1. To make public far and wide; to render conspicuous. “On charitable lists he blazed his name.” Pollok. To blaze those virtues which the good would hide. Pope.

  1. To blazon. [Obs.] See BLAZON. Peacham.
  2. To mark, as a tree, by chipping off a piece of the bark. “I found my way by the blazed trees.” Hoffman.
  3. To designate by blazing; to mark out; as, to blaze a line or path.

Champollion died in 1832, having done little more than blaze out the road to be traveled by others. Nott.