baby bluesn.1
/ˌbeɪbɪ ˈbluːz/, U.S. /ˈbeɪbi ˈbluz/ colloquial (originally U.S.).
With plural agreement. Blue eyes; (more generally) eyes.
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the world > life > the body > external parts of body > head > face > eye > [noun] > types of eyes by colour
eyec1275
black eyec1450
blue eyea1545
welkin-eyea1616
baby blues1892
1892 Mag. of Poetry 4 202/1 Your pretty ways, your baby-blues, May give you right to pick and choose.
1918 R. Beach Winds of Chance 3/1 Fix your baby blues on the little ball and watch me close.
1943 F. Loesser I'm riding for Fall (sheet music) 2 Dud-in' up in my two-tone shoes, For the gal with the baby blues.
1994 Homemaker's Mag. (Toronto) Summer 55/1 (advt.) Shadow here. Liner there... Baby those baby blues.
2002 Esquire May 64/1 The compellingly vague way he blinks his baby blues (has any romantic lead ever gotten so much mileage out of fumbling with his specs?).
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, June 2011; most recently modified version published online December 2021).
baby bluesn.2
/ˈbeɪbɪ ˌbluːz/, U.S. /ˈbeɪbi ˈbluz/ colloquial.
A temporary change in mood, characterized by feelings of depression or anxiety, experienced by many mothers soon after childbirth. Cf. postnatal depression n. at postnatal adj. Compounds.
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the world > health and disease > mental health > mental illness > degree or type of mental illness > [noun] > depression
anxiety1661
vapours1662
vapour-fit1707
depression1905
postpartum depression1929
baby blues1940
sterks1941
postnatal depression1946
PPD1975
PND1978
SAD1983
seasonal affective disorder1983
1940 N. J. Eastman Expectant Motherhood x. 173 Most common among such reactions, perhaps, is what is colloquially called the ‘Baby Blues’.
1971 A. Phillips & J. Rakusen Our Bodies Ourselves (1978) xiv. 453 By the third day, most women have the by now familiar ‘baby blues’. We may cry; have frightening dreams and fantasies; feel scared or worried by our lack of ‘maternal feelings’.
1995 Canad. Living June 53/2 Most of the women who experience ‘baby blues’ have nothing in their past or present to account for it.
2005 Baby & You Feb. 64/3 It is also a gentle treatment for new mothers who are experiencing problems with post-birth wounds, breastfeeding, or bouts of the baby blues.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, June 2011; most recently modified version published online December 2021).
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