blue-veined, a.
[blue a. 11 b.]
a. Having blue veins.
| 1593 Shakes. Ven. & Ad. 125 These blue-veined violets, whereon we lean. 1797 Coleridge Christabel i. ix, Her blue-veined feet unsandal'd were. 1953 R. Graves Poems 10 In the warm blue-veined nook Of your elbow crook. |
b. spec. blue-veined cheese = blue cheese (see blue a. 13); so blue vein, blue veiny (cheese). (Cf. blue-vinnied adj.)
| 1892 Mrs. Beeton Househ. Managem. xli. 894 Dorsetshire yields us a very good cheese called Blue veiny, from its blue-veined appearance. 1950 J. G. Davis Dict. Dairying 43 Blue-veined cheese, a term applied to Stilton, Wensleydale, Roquefort, and Gorgonzola cheese, in which the blue-green mould, Penicillium roqueforti, grows in cracks and is an important ripening agent. 1959 A. McLintock Descr. Atlas N.Z. 58 The main kind of cheese produced [in N.Z.] is ‘cheddar’, with one factory at Eltham producing ‘blue vein’ cheese. |