Library / English Dictionary

BLIGHT

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

 I. (noun) 

Sense 1

Meaning:

Any plant disease resulting in withering without rotting

Classified under:

Nouns denoting stable states of affairs

Hypernyms ("blight" is a kind of...):

plant disease (a disease that affects plants)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "blight"):

walnut blight (a disease of English walnut trees)

twig blight (a disease of the ends of twigs of woody plants)

tomato blight; tomato yellows (a disease of tomato plants)

thread blight (a disease of tropical woody plants (cacao or tea or citrus))

stripe blight (a disease of oats)

stem blight (a fungous blight attacking the stems of plants)

spur blight (a disease of raspberries)

spinach blight (a disease of spinach plants)

rim blight (a disease of tea plants)

potato blight; potato disease; potato mildew; potato mold; potato murrain (a blight of potatoes)

peach blight (a disease of trees bearing drupes)

leaf blight (any blight causing a browning and falling of the leaves of a plant)

late blight (blight in which symptoms appear late in the growing season especially a disease of solanaceous plants caused by the fungus Phytophthora infestans)

head blight (a blight of the heads of cereals)

halo blight (a blight affecting the leaves of oats and other grasses)

bean blight; halo blight; halo spot (a blight of bean plants)

collar blight (a disease affecting the trunks of pear and apple trees)

coffee blight (a blight affecting the coffee plant)

chestnut-bark disease; chestnut blight; chestnut canker (a disease of American chestnut trees)

cane blight (a disease affecting the canes of various bush fruits (e.g., raspberries or currants))

blister blight (a disease of Scotch pines)

blister blight (a disease of tea plants)

beet blight (a disease of beet plants)

apple blight; apple canker (a disease of apple trees)

alder blight (a disease of alders caused by the woolly alder aphid (a plant louse))

Derivation:

blight (cause to suffer a blight)

Sense 2

Meaning:

A state or condition being blighted

Classified under:

Nouns denoting stable states of affairs

Hypernyms ("blight" is a kind of...):

desolation; devastation (the state of being decayed or destroyed)

Derivation:

blight (cause to suffer a blight)

 II. (verb) 

Sense 1

Meaning:

Cause to suffer a blight

Example:

Too much rain may blight the garden with mold

Synonyms:

blight; plague

Classified under:

Verbs of raining, snowing, thawing, thundering

Hypernyms (to "blight" is one way to...):

afflict; smite (cause physical pain or suffering in)

Sentence frames:

Something ----s somebody
Something ----s something

Derivation:

blight (any plant disease resulting in withering without rotting)

blight (a state or condition being blighted)

Credits

 Context examples: 

She returned just in time to join the others as they quitted the house, on an excursion through its more immediate premises; and the rest of the morning was easily whiled away, in lounging round the kitchen garden, examining the bloom upon its walls, and listening to the gardener's lamentations upon blights, in dawdling through the green-house, where the loss of her favourite plants, unwarily exposed, and nipped by the lingering frost, raised the laughter of Charlotte,—and in visiting her poultry-yard, where, in the disappointed hopes of her dairy-maid, by hens forsaking their nests, or being stolen by a fox, or in the rapid decrease of a promising young brood, she found fresh sources of merriment.

(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)

The blossom is blighted, the leaf is withered, the god of day goes down upon the dreary scene, and—and in short you are for ever floored.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

You're a blighted being, and decidedly cross today because you can't sit in the lap of luxury all the time.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

The more you and I converse, the better; for while I cannot blight you, you may refresh me.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

“It passed by the blighted beech there,” said Alleyne, pointing, “and the hounds were hard at its heels.”

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

The GAANTRY gene stacking technology will be freely available to anyone interested, and a commercial firm is planning to use it to introduce multiple genes into potatoes to make them more resistant to late blight, which is caused by a fungus-like organism.

(Innovative Approach to Breeding Could Mean Higher Yields and Better Crops, The Titi Tudorancea Bulletin)

But a blight had come over my existence, and I only visited these people for the sake of the information they might give me on the subject in which my interest was so terribly profound.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

If the likeness of that face don't turn to burning fire, at the thought of offering money to me for my child's blight and ruin, it's as bad.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

Being an energetic individual, Mr. Laurence struck while the iron was hot, and before the blighted being recovered spirit enough to rebel, they were off.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

When full of flowers they would doubtless look pretty; but now, at the latter end of January, all was wintry blight and brown decay.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)