blue ribbon

blue ribbon noun: the highest honor or prize awarded in some competitions and contests.

Noun

blue ribbon (plural blue ribbons)

The highest honor or prize awarded in some competitions and contests.
- Mom's strawberry jam won the blue ribbon at the Holland County Fair three years running.
- These [scholarships] were the blue ribbon of the [college].1859, Frederic William Farrar, Julian Home
The emblem of the Order of the Garter.
The badge adopted by a teetotal society.
(Internet) A badge worn or displayed to advocate freedom from online censorship.

Adjective

blue ribbon (not comparable)

(idiomatic) Highly superior in quality, style, substance, prestige, etc.
- The governor selected a cadre of blue ribbon social scientists to serve on her poverty task force.
- A blue ribbon jury of accomplished artists will choose the best three entries.
(Australia, informal) Pertaining to the Liberal Party, its supporters and regions.

Forms of blue ribbon

Noun
plural	blue ribbons
Adjective
alternative form	blue-ribbon

Origin of blue ribbon

Perhaps a calque of Middle French cordon bleu (“blue ribbon”), worn by knights of the Order of the Holy Spirit, or after Blue Riband, a sailing award.

Questions about blue ribbon

What does blue ribbon mean?: Blue ribbon means the highest honor or prize awarded in some competitions and contests.
What part of speech is blue ribbon?: Blue ribbon can be a noun or an adjective.
What is the plural of blue ribbon?: The plural of blue ribbon is blue ribbons.

Words near blue ribbon in the dictionary

Adapted from Wiktionary: blue ribbon (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated: 2026-09-02

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: EN-AU ck1 blue ribbon.ogg.

Cite this entry: “blue ribbon.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/blue_ribbon. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.