Word.ws English Dictionary

true blue

UK/ˌtɹuː ˈbluː/US/ˌtɹu ˈblu/

true blue adjective: steadfastly faithful or loyal; unwavering in loyalty; staunch, true.

Adjective

true blue (not comparable)

  1. Steadfastly faithful or loyal; unwavering in loyalty; staunch, true.
    • He was a true blue supporter, and would not listen to what he supposed to be the lies of the opposition.
    • No, Tom's true-blue, Huck, and he'll come back. He won't desert.1876, Mark Twain [pseudonym; Samuel Langhorne Clemens], chapter XV, in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Hartford, Conn.: The American Publishing Company, →OCLC, page 133
    1. Patriotic.
    2. (UK) Of or pertaining to the (historical) Tory, and now the Conservative, political party; hence, steadfastly conservative.
      • […] Mr. Wenham himself was a staunch old True Blue Tory, and his father a small coal-merchant in the north of England […]1847 January – 1848 July, William Makepeace Thackeray, “In which a Charade is Acted which May or May Not Puzzle the Reader”, in Vanity Fair […], London: Bradbury and Evans […], published 1848, →OCLC...
      • Not that he is a violent Whig, or perhaps that he is a Whig at all. But he jeers and sneers at the old county doings; […] All this is deeply regretted, for, in the old days, there was no portion of the county more decidedly true blue than that Framley district; […]1860 January – 1861 April, Anthony Trollope, “The Framley Set, and the Chaldicotes Set”, in Framley Parsonage. […] (Collection of British Authors; 551), copyright edition, volume I, Leipzig: Bernhard...
    3. (Scotland, historical) Of or pertaining to the Scottish Presbyterian or Whig political party in the 17th century; hence, steadfastly Presbyterian.
      • For his Religion it was fit / To match his Learning and his Wit: / 'Twas Presbyterian true blew, / For he was of that stubbon Crew / Of Errant Saints, whom all men grant / To be the true Church Militant: […]1662 (indicated as 1663), [Samuel Butler], “[The First Part of Hudibras]. Canto I.”, in Hudibras. The First and Second Parts. […], London: […] John Martyn and Henry Herringman, […], published 1678...
      • This was a tough true-blue presbyterian, called Deans, who, though most obnoxious to the Laird on account of principles in church and state, contrived to maintain his ground upon the estate […]1818 July 25, Jedediah Cleishbotham [pseudonym; Walter Scott], chapter VII, in Tales of My Landlord, Second Series, […] (The Heart of Mid-Lothian), volume I, Edinburgh: […] [James Ballantyne and Co.]...
  2. Representing the true essence of something; authentic, genuine, honest.
    • Some upscale, service-oriented dealers say competitors are installing the third-party disk drives in PC XTs and passing them off as true blue PC XTs.1985 May 27, Steven Burke, “Retailing: Dealers Install Non-IBM Parts”, in J. Michael Lowe, editor, InfoWorld, volume 7, number 21, San Mateo, Calif.: Popular Computing, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 20, column 1
    • Ellen [DeGeneres]'s honesty and true-blue down-to-earthness were riveting.2001 October 23, Ted Johnson, “Reader Forum: The Ellen Show”, in The Advocate, Los Angeles, Calif.: Liberation Publications, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 4, column 1
    1. (Australia, informal, specifically) Representing authentic Australian culture, values, etc.
  3. (UK) Aristocratic by birth.
  4. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see true, blue.
    • Second, some living caerulea are blue: A few display attractive shades of blue green or, more rarely, true blue.1996, R[ichard] D. Bartlett, Patricia P[ope] Bartlet, “Arboreal Favorites: Family Hylidae”, in Frogs, Toads, and Treefrogs: Everything about Selection, Care, Nutrition, Breeding, and Behavior...
    • True blue chalcedony is uncommon and highly desirable as a lapidary material.2010, Patti Polk, “Collectible Materials for Lapidary Use and Display”, in Collecting Rocks, Gems and Minerals: Identification, Values, Lapidary Uses, Iola, Wis.: Krause Publications, →ISBN, page 48

Noun

true blue (countable and uncountable, plural true blues)

  1. (countable) A faithful partisan or supporter of a cause, person, political party, etc.
    • A mild Liberalism prevailed, a Liberalism that would be regarded as hide-bound Toryism now, but was daring enough in those days. One man who had been to work in Northampton proclaimed himself a Radical; but he was cancelled out by the landlord, who called himself a ‘true blue’.1939, Flora Thompson, “At the ‘Wagon and Horses’”, in Lark Rise to Candleford: A Trilogy, London: Penguin Books, published 1973, →ISBN, pages 65–66
  2. (historical, uncountable) A blue dye from Coventry, England, famous for not washing out.
  3. (color models and color spaces) A precisely defined pure blue, as for example web color #0000FF = RGB(0,0,255).

true blue meaning in Hindi and Urdu

true blue in Hindi

steadfastly faithful or loyal
सरफ़रोश sarafroś

true blue in Urdu

steadfastly faithful or loyal
سرفروش sarfaroś

Examples of true blue in a sentence

  • True love / You're the one I'm dreaming of / Your heart fits me like a glove / And I'm gonna be true blue, baby, I love you1986 June 30, Stephen Bray, Madonna, “True Blue”, in True Blue, performed by Madonna:
  • Or it may refer to "true blue" principles of Puritans—that is, unyielding and dogmatic.2010, Garrett Peck, “BLUE LAWS”, in Rachel Black, editor, Alcohol in Popular Culture: An Encyclopedia, Santa Barbara, Calif.: Greenwood...

Synonyms of true blue

Forms of true blue

Adjective
alternative formtrue-blue
Noun
pluraltrue blues

Origin of true blue

Endocentric compound of true (“loyal, faithful”, adjective) + blue (“steadfastly faithful or loyal”, adjective). The symbolism of the colour blue as representing constancy, faithfulness, loyalty, and truth may derive from the constant colour of the sky, or the tendency of certain blue dyes to resist fading, especially those made in Coventry. Adjective senses 1.1.2 (“of or pertaining to the Tory, and now the Conservative, political party”) and 1.1.3 (“of or pertaining to the Scottish Presbyterian or Whig political party in the 17th century”) probably both allude to sense 1 (“steadfastly faithful or loyal”). Sense 1.1.2 may also allude to sense 1.1.3 which is older, and sense 1.1.3 may partly allude to the blue colour of the flag of Scotland.

Questions about true blue

What does true blue mean?
True blue means steadfastly faithful or loyal; unwavering in loyalty; staunch, true.
What is true blue in Hindi?
True blue in Hindi is सरफ़रोश (sarafroś). See True blue meaning in Hindi.
How do you use true blue in a sentence?
True love / You're the one I'm dreaming of / Your heart fits me like a glove / And I'm gonna be true blue, baby, I love you
What part of speech is true blue?
True blue can be an adjective or a noun.
How do you pronounce true blue?
True blue is pronounced /ˌtɹuː ˈbluː/ (UK).

Words near true blue in the dictionary

  1. true believer
  2. true believer syndrome
  3. true believers
  4. true bill
  5. true bills
  6. true blue
  7. true blues
  8. true bug
  9. true bugs
  10. true civet
  11. true civets

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: true blue (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: En-au-true blue.ogg.

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