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
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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:
Morgan was blithe about the impact of endorsements.
From Slate ● Aug. 25, 2026
The blithe and often zany choreography unfolded intriguingly as its asymmetrical configurations—involving four men, three women and three folding chairs—kept the whole theatrical affair deftly off balance.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 27, 2026
That may give these companies an extra temporary boost, but consumers might not be so blithe, Malek warns.
From Barron's ● Apr. 27, 2026
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
She might have been blithe about dying when it was abstraction, but she wasn’t now.
From "Strange the Dreamer" by Laini Taylor
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
He stepped out in the blither air, and took his way to Hampstead Heath.
From Masterman and Son by W. J. (William James) Dawson
To the right, through wind-rumpled, tree-dotted meadows ran the Thames, still intensely silver in the sunshine, but somehow blither and more young than in London.
From The Kingdom Round the Corner A Novel by Coningsby Dawson
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
The blithest of the war-inspired songs, now up among the bestsellers.
From Time Magazine Archive
And blithest my heart when the weather was good!
From Stories and Ballads of the Far Past Translated from the Norse (Icelandic and Faroese) with Introductions and Notes by Nora Kershaw
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Get a wordDefinitions 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.
