bloom

See also: Bloom, blööm, and Blööm

English

Pronunciation
  • IPA(key): /bluːm/
  • Audio (US)(file)
  • Homophone: Bloom
  • Rhymes: -uːm

Etymology 1

From Middle English blome, from Old Norse blóm, from Proto-Germanic *blōmô (“flower”). Doublet of bloom (“spongy mass of metal”); see there for more.

Noun

bloom (countable and uncountable, plural blooms)

  1. A blossom; the flower of a plant; an expanded bud.
  2. (collective) Flowers.
  3. (uncountable) The opening of flowers in general; the state of blossoming or of having the flowers open.
    The cherry trees are in bloom.
  4. (figuratively) A state or time of beauty, freshness, and vigor; an opening to higher perfection, analogous to that of buds into blossoms.
    the bloom of youth
  5. Rosy colour; the flush or glow on a person's cheek.
  6. The delicate, powdery coating upon certain growing or newly-gathered fruits or leaves, as on grapes, plums, etc.
    • 2010, Donna Pliner Rodnitzky, Low-Carb Smoothies:
      The bloom on blueberries is the dusty powder that protects them from the Sun; it does not rinse off.
  7. Anything giving an appearance of attractive freshness.
  8. (countable, uncountable) An algal bloom.
    • 2018, Tim Flannery, Europe: A Natural History, page 28:
      Where upwellings or other sources of nutrients allow Ehux to abound, it can proliferate, as blooms, to the point that the ocean turns milky.
  9. The clouded appearance which varnish sometimes takes upon the surface of a picture.
  10. A yellowish deposit or powdery coating which appears on well-tanned leather.[1]
  11. (mineralogy) A bright-hued variety of some minerals.
    the rose-red cobalt bloom
  12. (cooking) A white area of cocoa butter that forms on the surface of chocolate when warmed and cooled.
  13. (television) An undesirable halo effect that may occur when a very bright region is displayed next to a very dark region of the screen.
  14. (video games) The increase in bullet spread over time as a gun's trigger is kept held.
    • 2018 February 21, “Bullet Bloom: An FPS Tragedy”, in CritPoints‎:
      Bloom does add a skill element, burst firing the weapon instead of holding the trigger down, but it's questionable if adding a skill element like that is the actual intent of bloom, because that’s a pretty lame and linear skill element to add, requiring people to tap the button instead of hold it down.
Synonyms
Derived terms
Translations
blossom — see blossom
flower — see flower

Etymology 2

From Middle English bloom (“a blossom”).

Verb

bloom (third-person singular simple present blooms, present participle blooming, simple past and past participle bloomed)

  1. (transitive) To cause to blossom; to make flourish.
  2. (transitive) To bestow a bloom upon; to make blooming or radiant.
    • 1667, John Milton, “Book IV”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], […], →OCLC; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: […], London: Basil Montagu Pickering […], 1873, →OCLC:
      The Tree of Life […] blooming Ambrosial Fruit Of vegetable Gold.
    • 1819 September 19, John Keats, “To Autumn”, in Lamia, Isabella, the Eve of St. Agnes, and Other Poems, London: […] [Thomas Davison] for Taylor and Hessey, […], published 1820, →OCLC, stanza 3, page 138:
      Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they? / Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,— / While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day, / And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue; [...]
  3. (intransitive) Of a plant, to produce blooms; to open its blooms.
  4. (intransitive, figuratively) Of a person, business, etc, to flourish; to be in a state of healthful, growing youth and vigour; to show beauty and freshness.
    • 1961 November 10, Joseph Heller, “The Soldier in White”, in Catch-22 […], New York, N.Y.: Simon and Schuster, →OCLC, page 171:
      Nurse Cramer had a cute nose and a radiant, blooming complexion dotted with fetching sprays of adorable freckles that Yossarian detested.
    • 2017 May 13, Barney Ronay, “Antonio Conte’s brilliance has turned Chelsea’s pop-up team into champions”, in the Guardian‎:
      The attacking three have also been allowed to bloom. Liberated from deep defensive duties Eden Hazard has become more expressive, more obviously, flashily complete.
    • a. 1788, John Logan, A Tale:
      A better country blooms to view, / Beneath a brighter sky.
  5. (cooking) To bring out the flavor of a spice by cooking it in oil.
  6. (intransitive, cooking, of chocolate) To develop a layer of bloom (white, spotty areas of cocoa butter) due to repeated warming and cooling.
Synonyms
Derived terms
Translations
open its blooms — see blossom

Etymology 3

From Middle English blome, from Old English blōma (“flower; lump of metal”), from Proto-Germanic *blōmô (“flower”). Cognate with West Frisian blom, Dutch bloem, German Blume, Icelandic blóm, Danish blomme, Gothic 𐌱𐌻𐍉𐌼𐌰 (blōma). Related to blow, blade, blead; also related to flower, foil, and belladonna.

Noun

bloom (plural blooms)

  1. The spongy mass of metal formed in a furnace by the smelting process.
    • 1957, H.R. Schubert, History of the British Iron and Steel Industry, page 26:
      These metallic bodies gradually increasing in volume finally conglomerate into a larger mass, the bloom, which is extracted from the furnace with tongs.
Translations

References
  1. Edward H[enry] Knight (1877) “Bloom”, in Knight’s American Mechanical Dictionary. […], volumes I (A–GAS), New York, N.Y.: Hurd and Houghton […], →OCLC.

Part or all of this entry has been imported from the 1913 edition of Webster’s Dictionary, which is now free of copyright and hence in the public domain. The imported definitions may be significantly out of date, and any more recent senses may be completely missing.
(See the entry for “bloom”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.)

Chinook Jargon

Etymology

Borrowed from English broom.

Noun

bloom

  1. broom

Derived terms

Manx

Etymology

Borrowed from English bloom.

Noun

bloom m (genitive singular [please provide], plural [please provide])

  1. (metallurgy) bloom

Mutation
Manx mutation
RadicalLenitionEclipsis
bloomvloommloom
Note: Some of these forms may be hypothetical. Not every
possible mutated form of every word actually occurs.
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