Blushing

How to spell blushing

8 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce blushing

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does blushing mean?

1. verbBecoming red in the face from embarrassment, shame, or modesty.
2. adjectiveHaving a soft pink or rosy colour, as of cheeks or certain wines and flowers.

Blushing in a sentence

• verb

  She kept blushing as the colleagues praised her presentation.

• adjective

  They painted the nursery a warm blushing pink.

• verb

  He was blushing after stumbling over his words at the wedding.

• adjective

  The menu paired the dessert with a blushing rosé wine.

Where does blushing come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This word grows from the verb 'blush', which traces back to the Old English 'blyscan', meaning 'to redden' or 'to glow', and to the related 'blysa', a torch or flame. The underlying Germanic sense was all about a sudden flush of bright colour, the way a fire glows or a face reddens with feeling. By the medieval period the verb had narrowed to describe the involuntary reddening of the cheeks brought on by shame, modesty, or excitement. The present-participle form 'blushing' adds the familiar '-ing' suffix, letting the word work both as an ongoing action and as a descriptive adjective for someone visibly flushed. Notice that the spelling keeps the silent-feeling 'sh' cluster intact, so it stays 'blush' plus '-ing' with no doubling of the final consonant, since 'blush' ends in a consonant cluster rather than a single stressed consonant.

How the word is built

• blush (Old English blyscan: to redden, glow)
• -ing (present participle/adjective suffix)