▪ I. blushing, vbl. n.
(ˈblʌʃɪŋ)
[f. blush v. + -ing1.]
The action of the vb. blush.
| 1581 R. Goade in Confer. ii. (1584) L iij b, Worthy of hissing, and of blusshing too. 1648 W. Jenkyn Blind Guide i. 6 Even the sectaries read it with blushing. 1663 J. Spencer Prodigies (1665) 146 As the blushings of the Evening. 1872 Darwin Emotions xiii. 310 Blushing is the most peculiar, and the most human of all expressions. |
▪ II. ˈblushing, ppl. a.
[f. as prec. + -ing2.]
1. a. That blushes; modest. Also used, often somewhat facetiously, with bride.
| 1613 R. C. Table Alph. (ed. 3) Bashfull, blushing, or shamefast. 1764 Goldsm. Trav. 408 The modest matron, and the blushing maid. 1803 J. Porter Thaddeus xlvii. 428 Her blushing eyes were shedding tears of delight. 1858 [see bride n.1 1]. 1955 D. Lessing Proper Marriage i. i. 25 Martha remarked irritably that Dr. Stern was something of an old woman, ‘sitting all wrapped up behind his desk like a parcel in white tissue paper, being tactful to a blushing bride’. |
b. blushing bride: the S. African proteaceous plant Serruria florida; also its flower.
| 1917 R. Marloth Flora S. Afr. 13 Blushing bride. Serruria florida..from one of the valleys of the upper Berg⁓river (Franschhoek). Flowering in winter. 1955 K. A. Thompson Great House vii. 213 The small, frail-looking pink protea called the Blushing Bride..was supposed to be extinct when he found it flowering in a tiny kloof in the Fransch Hoek Mountains. |
2. Ruddy; roseate.
| 1593 Shakes. Rich. II, iii. iii. 63 The blushing discontented sun. 1648 Herrick Hesper., To Phillis, The blushing apple, bashful pear. a 1721 Prior Garland (R.) The dappled pink and blushing rose. 1805 Southey Madoc in W. xiv, Antic trees Shone with their blushing blossoms. |
3. Causing blushes, shameful. Obs., exc. in blushing honours, in sense ‘causing blushes’, in imitation of Shakespeare.
| 1613 [see honour n. 6 b]. 1625 Bacon Ess. Friendsh. (Arb.) 181 Things..Gracefull in a Frends Mouth, which are Blushing in a Mans Owne. 1806 M. Edgeworth Leonora II. xlii. 7 To be handed into her own coach with all the blushing honours of a bride. 1857 Trollope Three Clerks I. xiii. 275 Alaric, with his blushing honours thick upon him, was left alone. |