blithe
Americanadjective
adjective
-
very happy or cheerful
-
heedless; casual and indifferent
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of blithe
First recorded before 1000; Middle English; Old English blīthe; cognate with Old Norse blīthr, Old High German blīdi, Gothic bleiths
Explanation
The adjective blithe used to mean happy and carefree, but over time it has also come to describe someone who isn't paying attention the way they should. If you have a blithe disregard for authority, you might just smile vaguely when a teacher is yelling at you and continue writing on the lockers with a Sharpie. If you're dancing to music while driving, and pass blithely through a red light, chances are you will be pulled over and given either a ticket or a lecture.
Vocabulary lists containing blithe
100 SAT Words Beginning with "B"
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A Christmas Carol
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"Nature" by Ralph Waldo Emerson
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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.
See Examples For:
That may give these companies an extra temporary boost, but consumers might not be so blithe, Malek warns.
From Barron's ● Apr. 27, 2026
On being asked by a pious official if he really knew God’s judgment, he is said to have responded, “He will not refuse one who is so blithe to go to him.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jan. 1, 2026
In one blithe sentence, Shafik assumes into legitimacy the major institutions of liberal modernity and declares them partners in a cooperative project, without inquiring into whether or how these institutions might be democratically justified.
From Slate ● May 9, 2024
Former FTX customers interviewed by the BBC said they were offended by the blithe dismissal of their problems, and urged the judge to reject calls for leniency.
From BBC ● Mar. 27, 2024
In the year she knew him, before they were married, she discovered a little magic in herself, and for a while felt like a blithe genie released from her lamp.
From "The God of Small Things" by Arundhati Roy
What kind of toxic passive-aggressive blither is that?
From Time ● Mar. 1, 2014
Lady Mary is, blithe and blither, on her way.
From Time Magazine Archive
As for his poetic effusions and snatches of writing, they are mostly fey blither.
From Time Magazine Archive
This dog, if a friendly voice Call him now to blither choice Than such chamber-keeping, "Come out!" praying from the door, Presseth backward as before, Up against me leaping.
From Heads and Tales : or, Anecdotes and Stories of Quadrupeds and Other Beasts, Chiefly Connected with Incidents in the Histories of More or Less Distinguished Men. by Adam White
She’s just the very same Lilias Elder that used to teach the bairns and go wandering over the hills with her brother; only she’s blither and bonnier.
From The Orphans of Glen Elder by Margaret M. (Margaret Murray) Robertson
Ms. Bouder, now often so mannered in ballets by George Balanchine, was at her freest and blithest.
From New York Times ● Feb. 23, 2018
If you are late for “Amy,” a new documentary about Amy Winehouse, you will miss her at her blithest.
From The New Yorker ● Jul. 1, 2015
Though its social scope is narrower than Hardy’s, you do come away from it with a true sense of the shrouded world that he devised, where fate could frown upon even the blithest day.
From The New Yorker ● Apr. 27, 2015
Ted, who had always been the blithest brother, and the least intellectual or introspective, could now be morose at times.
From Time Magazine Archive
And aye she wrought her mammie’s wark, And ay she sang so merrilie: The blithest bird upon the bush Had ne’er a lighter heart than she.
From The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. With a New Life of the Poet, and Notices, Critical and Biographical by Allan Cunningham by Robert Burns
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.
