ˈbluebottle
1. a. The common name for the Blue Corn-flower (Centaurea cyanus).
| 1551 Turner Herbal i. N iv, Blewbottel groweth in the corne. 1611 Florio, Battisegola, the weed blewbottle, Corneflower, or hurtsickle. 1672 T. Jordan Lond. Tri. in Heath Grocers' Comp. (1869) 494 Grain..intermingled with yellow flowers, Blew-bottles and erratick Poppies. 1794 Martyn Rousseau's Bot. xxvi. 402 Blue Bottle..whose beautiful blue colour would have attracted regard, had it been rare. 1863 Prior Plant-n. 26. |
b. Applied vaguely to other blue flowers.
| 1656 Ridgley Pract. Physic 118 Made of the flowers of Succory or Blew-bottles. 1884 W. Miller Plant-n. 15 Blue Bottle, Scilla nutans, Centaurea cyanus, and various other blue flowers. |
2. A nickname for a man in a dark blue uniform, as a beadle or policeman. Also attrib.
| 1597 Shakes. 2 Hen. IV, v. iv. 22 [Addressing a beadle] I will haue you as soundly swindg'd for this, you blue-bottle [1st Fol. blew Bottel'd] Rogue. 1607 Miseries Enforced Marr. in Hazl. Dodsley IX. 471 How now, blue-bottle, are you of the house? 1846 G. W. M. Reynolds Myst. London I. ii. 5/2 Them chaps in..the House of Commons gets on their legs and praises the bluebottles up to the skies as the most acutest police in the world. 1864 Sala in Daily Tel. 13 Sept., Caught in his own toils by the bluebottles of Scotland-yard. 1946 Wodehouse Joy in Morning xi. 87 ‘Stilton turns out to be the village bluebottle.’.. ‘A policeman, sir?’ |
3. bluebottle fly: a fly (Musca vomitoria) with a large bluish body; the Meat-fly or Blow-fly.
| c 1720 Prior Flies Poems (1741) 158 A Fly upon the Chariot-Pole Cries out ‘What Blue-bottle alive Did ever with such fury drive?’ 1817 Byron Beppo lxxiv, Humming like flies around the newest blaze, The bluest of bluebottles you e'er saw. 1822 W. Irving Braceb. Hall II. 199 The buzzing of a stout blue-bottle fly. |
4. A Portuguese man-o'-war (man-of-war 4). Austral. and S. Afr.
| 1933 Bulletin (Sydney) 29 Nov. 21/3 The stings of the pestilent ‘bluebottle’, or Portuguese man-o'-war. 1947 L. G. Green Tavern of Seas xv. 143 A seashore strewn with physalia, better known as blue-bottles or Portuguese men-o'-war, is no place for bare feet. 1956 S. Hope Diggers' Paradise 164 The risk to swimmers and surfers in the southern seas is mainly from..the Portuguese man-o'-war which the Aussies call a ‘bluebottle’. 1964 Cape Times (Week-End Mag.) 11 Jan. 4/3 The Portuguese Man o' War is small... The common name is bluebottle. |