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Webster's Dictionary (1865)

3 entries under this word

Blight

Blight, n.

noun

(blĭt), n. [See infra.]

  1. Mildew; decay; any thing nipping or blasting; — applied as a general name to various injuries or diseases of plants, causing the whole or a part to wither, whether occasioned by insects, fungi, or atmospheric influences. Loudon.
  2. (Fig.) That which frustrates one’s plans or withers one’s hopes; that which impairs or destroys.

A blight seemed to have fallen over our fortunes. Disraeli.

  1. A downy species of the aphis, or plant-louse, destructive to fruit-trees.
  2. In America, an eruption on the human skin consisting of minute reddish pimples, appearing in spots, or more generally diffused; a variety of the nettle lichen (L. urticósus). Dunglison.

Blight, v. t.

verbtransitive

v. t. [imp. & p. p. BLIGHTED; p. pr. & vb. n. BLIGHTING.] [Prob. contr. from a hypoth. A-S. belīhtan, to alight, to fall upon, blast, wither up, from A-S. līhtan, alīhtan, to alight, descend. Cf. Eng. to light upon, to fall on, strike.] To affect with blight; to blast; to prevent the growth and fertility of; to frustrate. “Blighted corn.” Locke.

This vapor . . . blasts vegetables, blights corn and fruit, and is sometimes injurious even to man. Woodward.

Blight, v. i.

verbintransitive

(blīt), v. i. To injure as by blight.

*But strong to blast and blight By pestilence and thunder storm. Prael.*