blister

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English blister, also blester,^[2][3] perhaps borrowed from Old French blestre (“swelling, pimple, lump”), also blostre.^[3][2][4][5] Its further origin is disputed.^[3][6][7] The OED explains the double French form as an adoption of Old Norse blástr (“a blowing; a swelling”), dative blæstri, from blása (“to blow”),^[3][8] a Scandinavian source that Klein, Weekley and Skeat also give.^[9][10][11] Barnhart allows a West Germanic source as well, comparing Old High German blāst (“breathing, blowing”).^[8] Merriam-Webster Unabridged and Collins prefer Middle Dutch bluyster (“blister”), as Partridge allows and as Johnson had said,^{[6][12][13][14]} and Ayto reports that view as possible, adding that the word can't be traced further.^[15] Dictionary.com takes the English word directly from the Old Norse dative.^[16] Hoad regards the word as of unknown origin, only possibly from Old French.^[7] Etymonline takes all these forms as perhaps from Proto-Indo-European *bhlei- (“to blow, swell”), an extension of *bhel-,^[17] and Merriam-Webster and Skeat relate the word to blast.^[6][11] The verb is formed from the noun,^[3][6][17] and Barnhart adds the influence of a Middle French verb.^[8]

Earliest recorded meaning

A swelling of the skin: before 1325, in the Cursor Mundi, whose manuscripts read Bile, and blister and blester bolnand sare.^[2][3][8] Etymonline dates the word to about 1300 and Ayto to the end of the 13th century,^[17][15] while Skeat found nothing before 1300.^[11] The OED dates the manuscript to before 1400.^[3]

Semantic evolution

The word first named a bubble of fluid on the skin.^[3][17] In medicine it also came to mean anything applied to raise one, from about 1541.^[3][4] From 1597, in Gerard's Herball, it was used of similar swellings on plants, and later on metal and painted surfaces;^[3] Johnson (1755) quoted Bacon's blister on leaves.^[14] In the 20th century a blister was a covering added to a ship against torpedoes and mines (1919) and a rounded compartment on an aircraft (1939).^[3] The verb is recorded in the intransitive sense from 1496, in the Treatise of Fishing with an Angle,^[3] though Barnhart cites a translation of Chauliac's surgery from probably before 1425,^[8] and it was used transitively from about 1541.^[3][17] The figurative use is old, as in Shakespeare's "blister'd her report", quoted by Johnson.^[14] The slang senses grew from the unpleasantness of the thing itself:^[18] an annoying person from 1806,^[3][18] and a curse such as blister me, which Green's Dictionary of Slang records from 1702 and the OED from 1840.^[18][3] In Northern Ireland a blister was an annoying person, in Devon I'm blistered was an oath, and the English Dialect Dictionary records blister-cup for the celery-leaved crowfoot in west Yorkshire and blister-plant for the buttercup in Lincolnshire.^[19] The sense "a summons" (1903) and the police use of the verb (1909) are also slang.^[3]

Timeline

• before 1325 – noun, a thin swelling on the skin, blester or blister.^[8][2][3]
• before 1425 – verb, probably, in a translation of Chauliac's surgery, according to Barnhart.^[8] The OED's first record, intransitive, is from 1496.^[3]
• c. 1541 – noun, a medical application that raises a blister; verb, to raise blisters on.^[3][17]
• 1597 – a similar swelling on a plant, and later on metal or paint.^[3]
• 1702 – used in curses, blister me.^[18]
• 1806 – slang, an annoying person.^[3][18]
• 1864 – a disease of peach trees that distorts the leaves.^[3]
• 1903 – slang, a summons.^[3]
• 1919 – a protective outer covering on a ship.^[3]
• 1939 – a rounded compartment on an aircraft.^[3]

Meanings

Noun

1. A small raised bubble on the skin filled with serum, caused by a burn or by rubbing: New boots left a blister on his heel.^[12][6][3]
2. A similar swelling containing air or liquid on another surface, such as a plant, metal or paint.^[12][6][3]
3. A transparent dome or other bulge on the fuselage of an aircraft.^[12][3]
4. A disease of peach trees caused by a fungus that distorts the leaves.^[3]
5. (nautical) An outer covering fitted to a ship as protection against torpedoes and mines.^[3]
6. (medicine) Something applied to raise a blister.^[6][3][4]
7. (slang) An annoying person.^[12][3][18]
8. (New Zealand slang) A rebuke.^[12]
9. (slang) A summons.^[3]

Verb

1. To become covered with blisters: Her palms blistered after an hour of rowing.^[12][6][3]
2. To cause blisters on: The heat blistered the varnish.^[12][6][3]
3. To attack with great scorn or sarcasm.^[12]
4. (slang) Used in curses.^[3][18]
5. (slang) Of a police officer, to record a person's name for an alleged offence.^[3]

Word family

• blistery
• blister pack
• blister beetle
• blister steel
• fever blister
• water blister

Related words

• blast
• blow
• bluster

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
4. ^ a b c Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
7. ^ a b Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
8. ^ a b c d e f g Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
9. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
10. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
11. ^ a b c Skeat, Walter W. (1911), A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, new ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
12. ^ a b c d e f g h i Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
13. ^ Partridge, Eric (1966), Origins: A Short Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, 4th ed., London: Routledge & Kegan Paul
14. ^ a b c Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
15. ^ a b Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
16. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
17. ^ a b c d e f Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
18. ^ a b c d e f g Green, Jonathon (2010), Green's Dictionary of Slang, London: Chambers; digital ed. 2016–, https://greensdictofslang.com
19. ^ 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)