Blues

In reference to the ancient Roman and medieval Byzantine racing faction, a calque of Latin venetī (“Sea-Blues”) or factio veneta (“the sea-blue faction”) and Byzantine Greek Βένετοι (Bénetoi, “Blues”).

Blues

1. (informal) Any of several sports teams whose uniform is predominantly blue, such as:
   1. (historical) The chariot-racing faction of the Roman circus and Constantinopolitan hippodrome that wore blue.
      • 2002, James Allan Stewart Evans, The Age of Justinian..., p. 38:

        'Constantinople adopted the follies, though not the virtues of ancient Rome,' wrote Edward Gibbon, 'and the same factions which had agitated the circus raged with redoubled fury in the Hippodrome.' Gibbon's judgment was that what produced the 'redoubled fury' in the Hippodrome was senseless hooliganism, and even though the Blues and Greens could be politicized upon occasion, they had no coherent aims, religious or political. Gibbon's successors had alternative suggestions, the most persistent of which has been that the Blues were supporters of religious orthodoxy and the Greens of Monophysitism.

   2. (Australian rules football) Carlton Football Club.
   3. (rugby league) New South Wales.
   4. (soccer) Birmingham City FC.
   5. (soccer) Everton FC.
   6. (soccer) Chelsea FC.
   7. (soccer) Manchester City FC.

• (charioteering faction): Greens, Reds, Whites; Golds, Purples (rare)

• Buels, bulse, lubes

Borrowed from English blues.

• IPA^(key): /bluːs/

• Audio

  (file)

• Rhymes: -uːs

Blues m (strong, genitive Blues, no plural)

1. blues (musical form)

• “Blues” in Duden online