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bloom

nounverbnouncommon in dialogue

  • United Kingdom//bluːm//
  • United Kingdom//blʉwm//
  • United States//blum//
  • Australia//blʉːm//
  • Scotland//blʉm//

A blossom; the flower of a plant; an expanded bud.

noun

  1. 1

    A blossom; the flower of a plant; an expanded bud.

    the rich blooms and enamelled vegetation of the tropics

  2. 2

    Flowers.

  3. 3

    The opening of flowers in general; the state of blossoming or of having the flowers open.

    The cherry trees are in bloom.

    sight of vernal bloom

    O, not for thee the glow, the bloom, ⁠Who changest not in any gale, ⁠Nor branding summer suns avail To touch thy thousand years of gloom: […]

  4. 4

    figurativeA state or time of beauty, freshness, and vigor; an opening to higher perfection, analogous to that of buds into blossoms.

    the bloom of youth

    every successive mother had transmitted to her child a fainter bloom, a more delicate and briefer beauty.

    We can have some more / Nature is a whore / Bruises on the fruit / Tender age in bloom

  5. 5

    Rosy colour; the flush or glow on a person's cheek.

  6. 6

    The delicate, powdery coating upon certain growing or newly-gathered fruits or leaves, as on grapes, plums, etc.

    The bloom on blueberries is the dusty powder that protects them from the Sun; it does not rinse off.

  7. 7

    Anything giving an appearance of attractive freshness.

    a new, fresh, brilliant world, with all the bloom upon it

  8. 8

    An algal bloom.

    Where upwellings or other sources of nutrients allow Ehux to abound, it can proliferate, as blooms, to the point that the ocean turns milky.

  9. 9

    A group of jellyfish, especially one caused by a swift increase in the population and especially when they are stranded on shore; the occurrence of such a bloom, and the ecological impact it has.

  10. 10

    The clouded appearance which varnish sometimes takes upon the surface of a picture.

  11. 11

    A yellowish deposit or powdery coating which appears on well-tanned leather.

  12. 12

    A bright-hued variety of some minerals.

    the rose-red cobalt bloom

  13. 13

    A white area of cocoa butter that forms on the surface of chocolate when warmed and cooled.

  14. 14

    A natural protective coating on an eggshell.

  15. 15

    An undesirable halo effect that may occur when a very bright region is displayed next to a very dark region of the screen.

  16. 16

    The increase in bullet spread over time as a gun's trigger is kept held.

    Bloom does add a skill element, burst firing the weapon instead of holding the trigger down, but it's questionable if adding a skill element like that is the actual intent of bloom, because that’s a pretty lame and linear skill element to add, requiring people to tap the button instead of hold it down.

  17. 17

    slangA fan of Filipino girl group BINI.

  18. 18

    A large swarm of ladybugs.

    Thousands of the little red and black insects took flight at the same time, and the bloom stretched for 10 miles before they landed.

    Though the bloom appeared to be a massive 80 miles by 80 miles on the radar, Dandrea believes the lady beetles were not flying in a concentrated mass that big.

Etymology

From Middle English blome, from Old Norse blóm, from Proto-Germanic *blōmô (“flower”). Doublet of bloom (“spongy mass of metal”); see there for more.

verb

  1. 1

    To cause to blossom; to make flourish.

    Charitable affection bloomed them.

  2. 2

    To bestow a bloom upon; to make blooming or radiant.

    The Tree of Life[…]blooming Ambrosial Fruit Of vegetable Gold.

    Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they? / Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,— / While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day, / And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue; [...]

  3. 3

    Of a plant, to produce blooms; to open its blooms.

    A flower which once / In Paradise, fast by the tree of life, / Began to bloom.

  4. 4

    figurativeTo spread; to slowly expand like a field of flowers that blossom in fits and spurts.

    Shadows bloomed over the yard.

    Anger bloomed up from his throat.

  5. 5

    figurativeOf a person, business, etc, to flourish; to be in a state of healthful, growing youth and vigour; to show beauty and freshness.

    Nurse Cramer had a cute nose and a radiant, blooming complexion dotted with fetching sprays of adorable freckles that Yossarian detested.

    The attacking three have also been allowed to bloom. Liberated from deep defensive duties Eden Hazard has become more expressive, more obviously, flashily complete.

    A better country blooms to view, / Beneath a brighter sky.

  6. 6

    To bring out the flavor of a spice by cooking it in oil.

  7. 7

    To develop a layer of bloom (white, spotty areas of cocoa butter) due to repeated warming and cooling.

  8. 8

    To let carbon dioxide to escape from coffee in order to improve the taste.

  9. 9

    To hydrate ingredients (such as gelatin or yeast) before using them.

Etymology

From Middle English bloom (“a blossom”).

noun

  1. 1

    The spongy mass of metal formed in a furnace by the smelting process.

    These metallic bodies gradually increasing in volume finally conglomerate into a larger mass, the bloom, which is extracted from the furnace with tongs.

Etymology

From Middle English blome, from Old English blōma (“lump of metal”), from Proto-Germanic *blōmô (“flower”). Cognates Cognate with North Frisian Bloom, bluum, blööm (“flower”), Saterland Frisian Bloume (“flower”), West Frisian and Limburgish blom (“flower”), Bavarian Bleame, Bleaml, Bleampl (“flower”), Dutch bloem, blom (“flower”), German Blume (“flower”), Luxembourgish Blumm (“flower”), Vilamovian błum (“flower”), West Flemish blomme (“flower”), Yiddish בלום (blum, “flower”), Danish blomme (“flower”), Faroese blóma (“flower”), Icelandic blóm (“flower”), Norwegian Nynorsk blom, blome (“flower”), Swedish blomma (“flower”), Gothic 𐌱𐌻𐍉𐌼𐌰 (blōma, “lily”), Vandalic *bluma (“flower”); also Breton bleuñv (“flowers; flowering”), Cornish blejan, blejen, bleujen, bleujenn (“blossom, flower”), Irish bláth (“flower”), Manx blaa (“flower; heyday”), Scottish Gaelic blàth (“bloom, blossom, flower; consequence, effect; heyday”), Welsh blodyn (“flower”), Latin flōs (“blossom, flower”), Greek φύλλο (fýllo, “leaf; blade; sheet; foil, plate”), Armenian բող (boġ), բոխի (boxi, “a kind of bitter field-plant, probably horse fennel, Hippomarathrum or a kind of fennel or wild parsley”), Tocharian A pält (“leaf; blade”), Tocharian B pilta (“leaf; blade”), Sanskrit फुल्ल (phulla, “full-blown flower”), पुल्ल (pulla, “flower”). Related to blow, blade, blead; also related to flower, foil, and belladonna.

Forms

plural
blooms
past tense
bloomed
past participle
bloomed
present participle
blooming
third person singular
blooms
The neighbouring pagesAlphabetical order follows the rules of the language, not byte values: an accent decides only between two otherwise identical words, and Spanish files Ñ as a letter of its own.

Lexical content from Wiktionary, under CC BY-SA 4.0 · Source entry · Data version 2026-08-23

Rank among the words of the OpenSubtitles 2018 corpus — film and television subtitles, so spoken rather than written usage (CC BY-SA 3.0).