The Collaborative International Dictionary
Blight \Blight\ (bl[imac]t), v. t. [imp. & p. p. Blighted; p. pr. & vb. n. Blighting.] [Perh. contr. from AS. bl[=i]cettan to glitter, fr. the same root as E. bleak. The meaning ``to blight'' comes in that case from to glitter, hence, to be white or pale, grow pale, make pale, bleach. Cf. Bleach, Bleak.]
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To affect with blight; to blast; to prevent the growth and fertility of.
[This vapor] blasts vegetables, blights corn and fruit, and is sometimes injurious even to man.
--Woodward. -
Hence: To destroy the happiness of; to ruin; to mar essentially; to frustrate; as, to blight one's prospects.
Seared in heart and lone and blighted.
--Byron.
Blighting \Blight"ing\, a. Causing blight.
Wiktionary
n. The act by which something is blighted. vb. (present participle of blight English)
Usage examples of "blighting".
Every moment of the man's waking life was filled with morbid thought of hatred -- he had become mentally as he was physically in outward appearance, the personification of the blighting emotion of Hate.
They went often ashore, and finally Paulvitch asked to accompany them -- he too was tiring of the blighting sameness of existence upon the ship.
Never in all his savage existence had he suffered such blighting terror -- never before had he known what terror meant.
Great wens that soured the land and skies around themselves, blighting the environment.
Yet is the spirit strong within me still, And bears me up though manhood's strength succumb, Unbent by any blighting blast of ill, Through fiery trials, to all false witness dumb.
No refuge in the drear immensity, Where lies the Past, wreck'd 'neath a sandy sea, Where o'er its glories blighting billows roll.
For the sake of that dear olden time, That sweet, sweet olden time, I look forth ever sadly still, And hope the time may come again, When Life hath borne its meed of pain, And stoutly struggled up the hill, When I once more, with heart elate, May meet her at _another_ gate, Beyond the blighting breath of fate, That chill'd the sweet, sweet olden time.
Every moment of the man's waking life was filled with morbid thought of hatred--he had become mentally as he was physically in outward appearance, the personification of the blighting emotion of Hate.
They went often ashore, and finally Paulvitch asked to accompany them--he too was tiring of the blighting sameness of existence upon the ship.
Never in all his savage existence had he suffered such blighting terror--never before had he known what terror meant.
They constitute in their own way an indictment against slavery quite as forcible as that of "Uncle Tom's Cabin," but an indictment that rests chiefly upon the blighting influence of the institution of slavery upon agriculture, manufactures, and the general industrial and social order.
Those fears had never weighed her down as this feeling of wrongness was doing — this blighting fear that was oddly like that which she knew in her old nightmare, a thick, swimming mist through which she ran with bursting heart, a lost child seeking a haven that was hidden from her.
One blighting word from him, and the stranger would have nothing to do but bow himself out with what dignity he could muster.
Beaumaris, with great self-control, forbore to utter one of his blighting snubs, he enjoyed himself very much, and was sorry when his host suggested that Miss Tallant would like to see the Fireworks.
Rivenhall’s notion of making himself agreeable in company was to treat with cold civility anyone for whom he felt no particular liking, and his graces, far from winning, included a trick of staring out of countenance those who pretensions he deprecated, and of uttering blighting comments which put an abrupt end to social intercourse, he stood in far greater danger (Mr.