Meaning
To do something, typically arguing, pleading or shouting, endlessly and pointlessly: however long you keep it up, you will not change the outcome or change anyone's mind. Almost always follows a verb such as argue, talk, complain or shout. The image is a face going livid from breathless effort, though nobody literally turns blue. Informal; the phrase always implies futility or exhaustion, never persistence that eventually succeeds. Regional use: General English.
Origin
The OED glosses 'blue (in the face)' as livid with effort or excitement, used hyperbolically, and its earliest citation is Trollope's The Small House at Allington (1864): 'You may talk to her till you're both blue in the face.' Etymonline dates the modern form to 1864 and records an earlier 'black and blue in the face' from 1829, built on the old 'livid' sense of blue (lead-coloured, blackish-blue) that also underlies 'black and blue'. The phrase belongs to a 19th-century fashion for hyperbolic physical descriptions of futile exertion, and later OED citations run from 1917 to 1968.
Research Sources
References used to check this entry’s meaning, history, or documented forms.
Variants
- black and blue in the face
- blue in the face
- till you're blue in the face
- until you are blue in the face
Usage Examples
- You can protest until you're blue in the face, but the committee has already voted.
- She argued with the airline till she was blue in the face and still missed the connection.
- I can explain the recycling rules until I'm blue in the face; nobody in this flat ever rinses a jar.