Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Pale; ghastly.
  • Dull; spiritless; stupid.
  • Blunt; curt.
  • Bashful; diffident.
  • To babble or prate about.
  • Naked; bare.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • adjective bashful; timid; sheepish; -- chiefly Scottish.
  • verb to of sheep, goats, or calves.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adjective Scotland, Northern England Bashful, sheepish.
  • adjective Scotland, Northern England Dull, stupid.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • verb cry plaintively
  • adjective disposed to avoid notice

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

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-Germanic *blaitaz (“pale, discoloured”), from Proto-Indo-European *bhlAid- (“pale, pallid”) and Middle English bleth, bleath ("timid, soft"), from Old English blēaþ ("gentle, shy, cowardly, timid; slothful, inactive, effeminate"), from Proto-Germanic *blauþaz (“weak, timid, void, naked”). Cognate with German blassen ("to make pale"), bleich ("pale, pallid"). More at bleak, bleach.

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