Please enable javascript to see: All 54 uses | Two men dressed in jeans and sweaty blue shirts came through the willows and looked toward the naked men. – Chpt 18 | A boy with a guitar sa...

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blues
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The Grapes of Wrath

He sang the "McAlester Blues" and then, to make up for it to the older people, he sang "Jesus Calls Me to His Side."
Chpt 17

blues = a style of music that originated among African Americans at the beginning of the 20th century; has a melancholy sound from repeated use of blue notes (notes or a low pitch)

A boy with a guitar sang the "Down Home Blues," chording delicately for himself, and on his second chorus three harmonicas and a fiddle joined him.
Chpt 24 *

The vertical exhaust pipe muttered softly, and an almost invisible haze of steel-blue smoke hovered over its end.†
Chpt 2

His blue chambray shirt was stiff and smooth with filler.†
Chpt 2

Over his head the exhaust of the Diesel engine whispered in quick puffs of blue smoke.†
Chpt 2

His face was red and his blue eyes long and slitted from having squinted always at sharp light.†
Chpt 2

The vertical exhaust pipe puttered up its barely visible blue smoke.†
Chpt 2

When it was out of sight he still watched the distance and the blue air-shimmer.†
Chpt 4

His blue shirt darkened down his back and under his arms.†
Chpt 4

It was an abnormally high forehead, lined with delicate blue veins at the temples.†
Chpt 4

For clothes he wore overalls and a blue shirt.†
Chpt 4

His blue jeans were pale at knee and seat, and he wore an old black suit coat, stained and spotted, the sleeves torn loose from the shoulders in back, and ragged holes worn through at the elbows.†
Chpt 6

A lot and a house large enough for a desk and chair and a blue book.†
Chpt 7

Flags, red and white, white and blue—all along the curb.†
Chpt 7

A flock of pigeons started from the deck of the tank house and flew around and settled again and strutted to the edge to look over; white pigeons and blue pigeons and grays, with iridescent wings.†
Chpt 8

He wore a black, dirty slouch hat and a blue work shirt over which was a buttonless vest; his jeans were held up by a wide harness-leather belt with a big square brass buckle, leather and metal polished from years of wearing and his shoes were cracked and the soles swollen and boat-shaped from years of sun and wet and dust.†
Chpt 8

He wore dark ragged pants and a torn blue shirt, open all the way down, and showing long gray underwear, also unbuttoned.†
Chpt 8

Grampa, fumbling with his chest, had succeeded in buttoning the buttons of his blue shirt into the buttonholes of his underwear.†
Chpt 8

His stiff jeans, with the bottoms turned up eight inches to show his heeled boots, his three-inch belt with copper figures on it, even the red arm bands on his blue shirt and the rakish angle of his Stetson hat could not build him up to his brother's stature; for his brother had killed a man, and no one would ever forget it.†
Chpt 8

She walked to the line and began to drape pale blue jeans and blue shirts and long gray underwear over the wire.†
Chpt 10

She walked to the line and began to drape pale blue jeans and blue shirts and long gray underwear over the wire.†
Chpt 10

He was a sharp-faced, lean young man of a Texas strain, and his pale blue eyes were sometimes dangerous and sometimes kindly, and sometimes frightened.†
Chpt 10

And then the loose roar of the six cylinders and a blue smoke behind.†
Chpt 10

Granma slept on, the sun on her closed eyelids, and the veins on her temples were blue, and the little bright veins on her cheeks were wine-colored, and the old brown marks on her face turned darker.†
Chpt 13

He wore a cheap straw sombrero, a blue shirt, and a black, spotted vest, and his jeans were stiff and shiny with dirt.†
Chpt 13

They rumbled along, putting a little earthquake in the ground, and the standing exhaust pipes sputtered blue smoke from the Diesel oil.†
Chpt 13

The man was dressed in gray wool trousers and a blue shirt, dark blue with sweat on the back and under the arms.†
Chpt 15

The man was dressed in gray wool trousers and a blue shirt, dark blue with sweat on the back and under the arms.†
Chpt 15

The other whispered some soft message and then they straightened their arms so that their clenched fists in the overall pockets showed through the thin blue cloth.†
Chpt 15

The man got in and started his car, and with a roaring motor and a cloud of blue oily smoke the ancient Nash climbed up on the highway and went on its way to the west.†
Chpt 15

Al put it up to thirty-eight miles an hour and the engine clattered heavily and a blue smoke of burning oil drifted up through the floor boards.†
Chpt 16

Blue smoke poured from the exhaust pipe.†
Chpt 16

Two men dressed in jeans and sweaty blue shirts came through the willows and looked toward the naked men.†
Chpt 18 *

"H'are ya?" he said, and his blue eyes were shiny with amusement.†
Chpt 20

A man in overalls and a blue shirt climbed out.†
Chpt 20

The sun was down now, and the gentle blue evening light was in the camp.†
Chpt 20

Uncle John dug with his thumb into the watch pocket of his blue jeans and scooped out a folded dirty bill.†
Chpt 20

The evening light deepened and became more blue.†
Chpt 20

The eastern mountains were blue-black, and as he watched, the light stood up faintly behind them, colored at the mountain rims with a washed red, then growing colder, grayer, darker, as it went up overhead, until at a place near the western horizon it merged with pure night.†
Chpt 22

They were dressed in new blue dungarees and in dungaree coats, stiff with filler, the brass buttons shining.†
Chpt 22

Both men looked down at their stiff blue clothes, and they smiled a little shyly.†
Chpt 22

Pa went inside the tent, and in a moment he came out with pale blue, washed overalls and shirt on.†
Chpt 22

She had put on the blue dress printed with little white flowers.†
Chpt 22

A man in blue overalls and a blue shirt walked along the edge of the road.†
Chpt 22

A man in blue overalls and a blue shirt walked along the edge of the road.†
Chpt 22

By seven, dinners were over, men had on their best clothes: freshly washed overalls, clean blue shirts, sometimes the decent blacks.†
Chpt 24

From the tents the people streamed toward the platform, men in their clean blue denim and women in their ginghams.†
Chpt 24

He trimmed and beveled the edge of the blue patch.†
Chpt 26

He wore khaki trousers and a blue shirt and a black necktie.†
Chpt 26

He was completely bald, and his head was blue-white.†
Chpt 26

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Grouped by 3 Meanings

Definitions:

(1) (blues as in: sings the blues)
a style of music that originated among African Americans at the beginning of the 20th century; has a melancholy sound from repeated use of blue notes

(blue notes are musical notes sung or played at a lower pitch than those of the major scale -- especially the flatted third, fifth and seventh)
(2) (blues as in: feeling the blues)
feelings of sadness or depression
(3) (meaning too common or rare to warrant focus)
meaning too common or too rare to warrant focus:

"Blues" more commonly describes shades of the color.