blight

Etymology

The word is of unknown origin.^[2][3][4][5] According to the OED it entered literature in the 17th century, apparently from the speech of farmers and gardeners, and writers were at first unsure how to spell it and seem to have connected it with the plant blite.^[2][6][7] Among the explanations the OED lists are a link with Middle English blichening, a reconstructed Old Norse *bleht-r, the ancestor of Icelandic blettr (“stain, spot, blot”), a derivative of the stems of bleach, black or bleak, or an imitative word felt to go with blow, blast and other words beginning with bl.^[2] Hoad suggests that it stands for an earlier Middle English *blēht, formally the same as Old English blæcðu, a word for rust, related to blǣce, both used of skin diseases, and further to bleach;^[8][9] Etymonline also names Old Norse blikna (“to become pale”) as a possible source,^[7] and Ayto sees blichening, rust in corn, as perhaps from the same Norse verb.^[9] Barnhart suggests a link with blāc (“pale, shining”), from the look of blighted plants,^[6] Klein with blicettan (“to glitter”),^[10] and Skeat with the Icelandic word for a stain.^[11] Weekley notes that the Middle English version of Palladius (about 1420) used blichening to render Latin rubigō (“mildew, rust”).^[12]

Earliest recorded meaning

The Shorter Oxford and the ODE date the word to the mid 16th century, in the sense of an inflammation or eruption of the skin.^[13][5] Merriam-Webster dates the plant-disease sense to 1578,^[4] while the OED's first record of it is in Cotgrave's French–English dictionary of 1611, for diseases of plants caused by parasitic fungi, such as mildew, rust or smut in grain, which it takes to be the earliest use.^[2][6] Etymonline dates it to the 1610s.^[7]

Semantic evolution

The word soon came to be used of any agricultural disease, with or without the idea of an unseen harmful influence:^[7] from 1681 the OED records it for an atmospheric or other influence that suddenly nips or withers plants.^[2] Johnson (1755) noted that Skinner explained it as mildew, but that most writers used it for anything that made fruit fail.^[14] The figurative sense, anything that withers hopes or checks prosperity, appears before 1661, in Holyday's translation of Juvenal.^[2][6][7] Later specific uses were an aphid that attacks fruit trees (1802), a close, hazy summer sky (1848) and a rash of small red pimples (1864).^[2] The sense of a run-down part of a city is recorded by Etymonline from 1935, as urban blight,^[7] and by the OED from 1938.^[2] The verb, formed from the noun, is first recorded in 1695 for affecting plants with blight,^[2][6][4] although Etymonline finds it implied in blighted in the 1660s;^[7] its figurative sense, to mar or frustrate, dates from 1712, in Addison's Spectator.^[2][6] In Hampshire dialect a blight was a caterpillar, or anything that destroyed garden produce.^[15]

Timeline

• mid 16th century – an inflammation or eruption of the skin.^[13][5]
• 1578 – a disease of plants.^[4] The OED's first record is from 1611, in Cotgrave.^[2][6]
• before 1661 – a malign influence that withers hopes or checks prosperity.^[2][6]
• 1681 – an influence that blasts or withers plants.^[2]
• 1695 – verb, to affect with blight.^[2][6][4]
• 1712 – verb, figurative, to mar or frustrate.^[2][6][7]
• 1802 – an aphid destructive to fruit trees.^[2]
• 1938 – an ugly or run-down urban area.^[2] Etymonline finds urban blight by 1935.^[7]

Meanings

Noun

1. A disease of plants in which leaves, flowers or stems wither and die without rotting: The potato crop failed after a wet summer brought blight.^[16][4]
2. Something that causes this, such as a fungus, an insect, bad weather or pollution.^[16][4]
3. A person or thing that spoils, damages or holds back growth or prosperity.^[16][4]
4. An ugly, neglected or decaying part of a city.^[16][2]

Verb

1. To affect a plant with blight.^[4][16]
2. To spoil, ruin or frustrate: The injury blighted the rest of her career.^[16][4]
3. Of a plant, to suffer from blight.^[4][16]

Word family

• blightingly
• blighter

Related words

• bleach
• bleak
• blite

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
5. ^ a b c Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
7. ^ a b c d e f g h i Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
8. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
9. ^ a b Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
10. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
11. ^ Skeat, Walter W. (1911), A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, new ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
12. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
13. ^ a b Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
14. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
15. ^ Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)
16. ^ a b c d e f g Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins