Apparently, the adjective is much older than the songs blues singers sing:
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meaning "depression, low spirits" goes back to 1741, from adj. blue "low-spirited," c.1385.
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(
Online Etymology Dictionary)
And from the
Dictionary of Americanisms, by John Russell Bartlett (1848)
(
Dictionary of Americanisms, by John Russell Bartlett (1848))
Quote:
BLUE. Gloomy, severe; extreme, ultra.
In the former sense it is applied especially to the Presbyterians, to denote their severe and mortified appearance. Thus, beneath an old portrait of the seventeenth century, in the Woodburn Gallery, is the following inscription:
A true blue Priest, a Lincey Woolsey Brother,
One legg a pulpit, holds a tub the other;
An Orthodox grave, moderate Presbyterian,
Half surplice cloake, half Priest, half Puritan.
Made up of all these halfes, hee cannot pass
For anything entirely but an ass.
In the latter sense it is used particularly in politics.
The bluest description of old Van Rensselaer Federalists have followed Col. Prentiss (in Otsego county).--N. Y. Tribune.
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...not to forget Wikipedia that gives this etymology:
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The phrase the blues is a reference to having a fit of the blue devils, meaning 'down' spirits, depression and sadness. An early reference to "the blues" can be found in George Colman's farce Blue devils, a farce in one act (1798).
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I hope our Usonian friends will forgive my talking a blue streak, ahem...