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Showing results for at first blush. Search instead for at+first+blush.
Synonyms

at first blush

Idioms  

  1. Also,. When first seen. For example, At first blush we thought it was an elegant restaurant, but it soon became obvious that it was hardly the place for a special dinner, or At first glance the contract looked just fine. All three phrases date from the 1300s. The noun blush is used with the obsolete meaning “glimpse” or “momentary view” and in this idiom has nothing to do with showing embarrassment. Also see love at first sight.

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

Memories get classified in ways that seem at first blush straightforward.

From The Wall Street Journal • Oct. 17, 2025

Even then, his "logic" falls apart at first blush.

From Salon • May 18, 2024

The whole idea of a tourist attraction built as a guileless ode to love, and shrine to a Slovak poem, may strike you, at first blush, as defying both rhyme and reason.

From New York Times • Feb. 12, 2024

That such discoveries were made at a cancer center isn't as surprising as it might seem at first blush.

From Science Daily • Jan. 31, 2024

We spend so much time celebrating the importance and power of family influence that it may seem, at first blush, that this can’t be true.

From "The Tipping Point" by Malcolm Gladwell

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023

Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.