Word.ws English Dictionary

bluecoat

bluecoat noun: a pupil attending any of certain prestigious British schools having a traditional dress code.

bluecoat: a pupil attending any of certain prestigious British schools having a traditional dress code
Image: Wivell & Co, Adelaide, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

bluecoat (plural bluecoats)

  1. (UK, attributive, often) A pupil attending any of certain prestigious British schools having a traditional dress code.
    • This was a bluecoat school in my day.
  2. (US) A soldier or officer in the Union army during the American Civil War.
    • The shot wounded Thomas Lord, a 73-year-old former New York City police officer from Suffolk, Va., and a bluecoat with the Seventh New York Volunteer Cavalry.2009 January 18, Ralph Blumenthal, “Re-enactor Is Indicted in Shooting of a Yankee”, in New York Times
    Synonyms:
    bluebelly
  3. (dated) A policeman.
    • Holonym: thin blue line
    • "The offices are up those steps," said the bluecoat.1900, Theodore Dreiser, Sister Carrie
    Synonyms:
    police officer

Synonyms of bluecoat

Antonyms

Forms of bluecoat

pluralbluecoats

Origin of bluecoat

From blue + coat.

Questions about bluecoat

What does bluecoat mean?
Bluecoat means a pupil attending any of certain prestigious British schools having a traditional dress code.
What part of speech is bluecoat?
Bluecoat is a noun.
What is the plural of bluecoat?
The plural of bluecoat is bluecoats.

Words near bluecoat in the dictionary

  1. bluecap
  2. bluecaps
  3. bluecheck
  4. bluechecks
  5. bluechip
  6. bluecoat
  7. bluecoats
  8. bluecomb
  9. bluecrab
  10. bluecrabs
  11. bluecup

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: bluecoat (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:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-bluecoat.wav.

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