blaze

• IPA^(key): /bleɪz/

• Audio (US)

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• Rhymes: -eɪz

From Middle English blase, from Old English blæse, blase (“firebrand, torch, lamp, flame”), from Proto-Germanic *blasǭ (“torch”), from Proto-Indo-European *bʰel- (“to shine, be white”). Cognate with Low German blas (“burning candle, torch, fire”), Middle High German blas (“candle, torch, flame”). Compare Dutch bles (“blaze”), German Blesse (“blaze, mark on an animal's forehead”), Swedish bläs (“blaze”).

blaze (plural blazes)

1. A fire, especially a fast-burning fire producing a lot of flames and light.
   • 1907, Robert William Chambers, chapter III, in The Younger Set, New York, N.Y.: D. Appleton & Company, OCLC 24962326:

     Long after his cigar burnt bitter, he sat with eyes fixed on the blaze. When the flames at last began to flicker and subside, his lids fluttered, then drooped; but he had lost all reckoning of time when he opened them again to find Miss Erroll in furs and ball-gown kneeling on the hearth and heaping kindling on the coals, […].

2. Intense, direct light accompanied with heat.

   to seek shelter from the blaze of the sun

   • (Can we date this quote?) John Milton

     O dark, dark, dark, amid the blaze of noon!

3. The white or lighter-coloured markings on a horse's face.

   The palomino had a white blaze on its face.

4. A high-visibility orange colour, typically used in warning signs and hunters' clothing.
5. A bursting out, or active display of any quality; an outburst.
   • (Can we date this quote?) William Shakespeare

     his blaze of wrath

   • (Can we date this quote?) John Milton

     For what is glory but the blaze of fame?

6. A spot made on trees by chipping off a piece of the bark, usually as a surveyor's mark.
   • 1855, Baynard Rush Hall, The New Purchase: Or, Early Years in the Far West - Page 71‎:

     The blaze is a longitudinal cut on trees at convenient intervals, made by cutting off the bark with an axe or hatchet: three blazes in a perpendicular line on the same tree indicating a legislative road, the single blaze, a settlement or neighbourhood road.

• ablaze
• blazen

From Middle English blasen, from Middle English blase (“torch”). See above.

blaze (third-person singular simple present blazes, present participle blazing, simple past and past participle blazed)

1. (intransitive) To be on fire, especially producing bright flames.

   The campfire blazed merrily.

2. (intransitive) To send forth or reflect a bright light; shine like a flame.
   • (Can we date this quote?) William Wordsworth

     And far and wide the icy summit blazed.

   • 1913, Joseph C. Lincoln, chapter 1, in Mr. Pratt's Patients:

     Pretty soon I struck into a sort of path […]. It twisted and turned, […] and opened out into a big clear space like a lawn. And, back of the lawn, was a big, old-fashioned house, with piazzas stretching in front of it, and all blazing with lights.

3. (intransitive, poetic) To be conspicuous; shine brightly a brilliancy (of talents, deeds, etc.).
4. (transitive, rare) To set in a blaze; burn.
5. (transitive) To cause to shine forth; exhibit vividly; be resplendent with.
6. (transitive, only in the past participle) To mark with a white spot on the face (as a horse).
7. (transitive) To set a mark on (as a tree, usually by cutting off a piece of its bark).
8. (transitive) To indicate or mark out (a trail, especially through vegetation) by a series of blazes.

   The guide blazed his way through the undergrowth.

9. (transitive, figuratively) To set a precedent for the taking-on of a challenge; lead by example.

   Darwin blazed a path for the rest of us.

10. (slang) To smoke marijuana.

• ablaze

From Middle English blasen (“to blow”), from Old English *blǣsan, from Proto-Germanic *blēsaną (“to blow”). Related to English blast.

blaze (third-person singular simple present blazes, present participle blazing, simple past and past participle blazed)

1. (transitive) To blow, as from a trumpet
2. (transitive) To publish; announce publicly
3. (transitive) To disclose; bewray; defame
4. (transitive, heraldry) To blazon

blaze (plural blazes)

1. Publication; the act of spreading widely by report

• blaze at OneLook Dictionary Search
• blaze in The Century Dictionary, The Century Co., New York, 1911

• Elbaz

From blahý +‎ -e.

• IPA^(key): [ˈblazɛ]
• Rhymes: -azɛ
• Hyphenation: bla‧ze

blaze (comparative blažeji, superlative nejblažeji)

1. blissfully, happily
   • 1868, Emanuel František Züngel, “Triolet”, in Básně‎, page 20–21:

     Pak budu zas tiše, blaze žíti,
     zapomenuv na to, co mne hnětlo;
     mír a pokoj budu v duši míti.

     (please add an English translation of this quote)

• blaženě
• šťastně
• mile

• blaze in Příruční slovník jazyka českého, 1935–1957
• blaze in Slovník spisovného jazyka českého, 1960–1971, 1989

• IPA^(key): [ˈblaːzə]

• Audio

  (file)

blaze

1. (archaic) singular present subjunctive of blazen

• bazel

blaze

1. to blow

• “blaze (I)”, in Wurdboek fan de Fryske taal (in Dutch), 2011