blate

• IPA^(key): /bleɪt/

• Audio (Southern England)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -eɪt

From Scots blate (“timid, sheepish”), apparently a conflation of

• Northern *Middle English blate, *blait (“pale, ghastly, terrified”), from Old English blāt (“pale, livid, ghastly”), from Proto-West Germanic *blait (“pale, discoloured”), from Proto-Indo-European *bʰleyd- (“pale, pallid”) and
• Middle English bleth, bleath (“timid, soft”), from Old English blēaþ (“gentle, shy, cowardly, timid; slothful, inactive, effeminate”), from Proto-Germanic *blauþuz (“weak, timid, void, naked”).

Cognate with German blassen (“to make pale”), bleich (“pale, pallid”). More at bleak, bleach.

blate (comparative blater, superlative blatest)

1. (Scotland, Northern England) Bashful, sheepish.
   • 1934, Lewis Grassic Gibbon, Grey Granite (A Scots Quair), Polygon, published 2006, page 491:

     You'd say Not them; fine legs, and Ma struggling into her blouse would say You're no blate. Who told you they're fine?

2. (Scotland, Northern England) Dull, stupid.

blate (third-person singular simple present blates, present participle blating, simple past and past participle blated)

1. Archaic form of bleat.
   • 1851, William Maxwell, The Virginia Historical Register, and Literary Note Book:

     Away they fly, like a party of Indians after buffaloes; while along the road, it may be, cattle are bellowing, sheep blating, dogs barking, hens cackling, and crows cawing.

• ablet, bleat, table

blate

1. (dated or formal) singular present subjunctive of blaten

• tabel

Uncertain; perhaps from Old English blāt (“pale”).

• IPA^(key): [blet], [blit]

blate (comparative blater, superlative blatest)

1. shy, modest, timid, sheepish
   • 1786, Robert Burns, A Bard's Epitaph:

     Is there a whim-inspired fool, / Owre fast for thought, owre hot for rule, / Owre blate to seek, owre proud to snool, / Let him draw near / And owre this grassy heap sing dool, / And drap a tear.

     Is there a whim-inspired fool, / Too fast for thought, too hot for rule, / Too shy to seek, too proud to submit, / Let him draw near / And over this grassy heap make lament, / And drop a tear.

2. stupid, easily deceived, dull, unpromising