Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun Any of numerous plant diseases resulting in sudden conspicuous wilting and dying of affected parts, especially young, growing tissues.
  • noun The condition or causative agent, such as a bacterium, fungus, or virus, that results in blight.
  • noun An agent or action that harms or ruins the value or success of something.
  • noun A condition or result of harmful or ruinous action.
  • intransitive verb To cause (a plant, for example) to undergo blight.
  • intransitive verb To have a deleterious effect on; ruin. synonym: blast.
  • intransitive verb To suffer blight.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun Some influence, usually hidden or not conspicuous, that nips, blasts, or destroys plants; a diseased state of plants caused by the condition of the soil, atmospheric influences, insects, parasitic plants, etc.; smut, mildew, or the like.
  • noun Figuratively, any malignant or mysterious influence that nips, blasts, destroys, or brings to naught; anything which withers hope, blasts one's prospects, or checks prosperity.
  • noun . In medicine: A slight facial paralysis induced by sudden cold or damp.
  • noun See blights.
  • To affect with blight; cause to wither or decay; nip, blast, or destroy.
  • To exert a malignant or baleful influence on; blast or mar the beauty, hopes, or prospects of; frustrate.
  • noun Purulent conjunctivitis.
  • noun An insect, usually inconspicuous or hidden, which causes trees or plants to become diseased or to die, as the American blight.
  • noun Same as mosquito blight. See also tea-bug.

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

  • noun Mildew; decay; anything nipping or blasting; -- applied as a general name to various injuries or diseases of plants, causing the whole or a part to wither, whether occasioned by insects, fungi, or atmospheric influences.
  • noun The act of blighting, or the state of being blighted; a withering or mildewing, or a stoppage of growth in the whole or a part of a plant, etc.
  • noun That which frustrates one's plans or withers one's hopes; that which impairs or destroys.
  • noun (Zoöl.) A downy species of aphis, or plant louse, destructive to fruit trees, infesting both the roots and branches; -- also applied to several other injurious insects.
  • noun United States A rashlike eruption on the human skin.
  • intransitive verb To be affected by blight; to blast.
  • transitive verb To affect with blight; to blast; to prevent the growth and fertility of.
  • transitive verb Hence: To destroy the happiness of; to ruin; to mar essentially; to frustrate.

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

  • noun any of many plant diseases causing damage to, or the death of, leaves, fruit or other parts
  • noun the bacterium, virus or fungus that causes such a condition
  • noun by extension anything that impedes growth or development or spoils any other aspect of life
  • verb intransitive to suffer blight
  • verb transitive to cause to suffer blight
  • verb transitive to spoil or ruin (something)

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

  • noun any plant disease resulting in withering without rotting
  • noun a state or condition being blighted
  • verb cause to suffer a blight

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Origin unknown.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Old Norse blikna ("to grow pallid").

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Examples

  • These questions should be well considered, particularly the last one, as it is a well-known fact that in a general way the term blight is frequently used for various injuries or diseases of plants causing the whole or parts to wither and die, whether occasioned by insects, fungi, or atmospheric influences.

    Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the 13th Annual Meeting Rochester, N.Y. September, 7, 8 and 9, 1922

  • If he could have seen the expression on Edith's face the night previous, as she looked on his besotted father, he would have cursed more bitterly than ever what he termed the blight of his life.

    What Can She Do? Edward Payson Roe 1863

  • “You don’t have to answer, but you might want to churn over if the word blight means anything to you all.”

    Strangers at the Feast Jennifer Vanderbes 2010

  • “You don’t have to answer, but you might want to churn over if the word blight means anything to you all.”

    Strangers at the Feast Jennifer Vanderbes 2010

  • “You don’t have to answer, but you might want to churn over if the word blight means anything to you all.”

    Strangers at the Feast Jennifer Vanderbes 2010

  • The bad always corrupts the good, a law in nature, until surgical shears are applied crime will increase [sorry] the blight is raging and there is no vaccine. mix acid with alkaline and the litmus will tell you red wins?

    Christmas Shopping In Ruraltown « POLICE INSPECTOR BLOG Inspector Gadget 2009

  • The Fishwife herself, who gave me the young plants, says that her own crop failed – the tomatoes caught blight from the potatoes in her allotment and had to be ripped up and thrown away.

    Archive 2009-09-01 Jean 2009

  • The Fishwife herself, who gave me the young plants, says that her own crop failed – the tomatoes caught blight from the potatoes in her allotment and had to be ripped up and thrown away.

    Jean's Knitting Jean 2009

  • The name "late blight" is appropriate since the fungus strikes late in the growing season, close to harvest time.

    Did You Know? A fungus from Mexico and the Irish potato famine 2008

  • The name "late blight" is appropriate since the fungus strikes late in the growing season, close to harvest time.

    Did You Know? A fungus from Mexico and the Irish potato famine 2008

Comments

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  • With such blight wrought upon our bankrupt estate,

    What ceremony of words can patch the havoc?

    from "Conversation Among the Ruins," Sylvia Plath

    March 26, 2008

  • "Something there is in beauty

    which grows in the soul of the beholder

    like a flower:

    fragile---

    for many are the blights

    which may waste

    the beauty

    for the beholder--

    and imperishable--

    for the beauty may die,

    or the world may die,

    but the soul in which the flower grows

    survives."

    Lord Foul's Bane

    July 29, 2012