Why "blue" blood?

Question

I speak for languages. In all of them you use the term "Blue blooded" to describe a person of royalty.

My question: why the color blue? Is there a special meaning to it or a history behind it?

Answer 1

What Nimrill said is exactly correct.

Answer 2

The term is derived from the Spanish 'sangre azul' which was used by noble families to indicate pure breeding.

Everyones blood is actually blue before it comes into contact with the air and lighter skin shows blue veins more clearly than darker skin. It is usually the darker skinned people who were associated with being out in the sun and manual labour which royals never did.

Answer 3

Royalty, the world over, has been the breeding stock and genetic playthings of the aliens who created humanity. They make good subjects. Royalty is 'creme of the crop', so to speak, and you can pretty much bet their family is going to live in the same area for a good long time which makes keeping track of them easier. Some royalty may actually have the blue blood of the lizard aliens.

or

Maybe they're all Democrats, deep down inside.

Answer 4

Blue blood is an English expression recorded since 1834 for noble birth or descent; it is a translation of the Spanish phrase sangre azul, which described the Spanish royal family and other high nobility who claimed to be 'pure', free of Moorish or Jewish blood, being of Visigothic descent. There is no connection between the phrase and the actual blood color of nobility; however, in the ancient agricultural societies of Europe the whole upper class had superficial veins that might be more visible and appear bluish by comparison to the rest of the pale-pinkish skin, as the skin itself was not tanned. In contrast with the working class of the time (mainly peasants), nobility and in general upper class people did not have to work outdoors, and mostly lived sheltered from the sun by dwellings and attire. The same contrast could be observed between untanned upper class Europeans - especially of northern stock whose skin tends to be less pigmented - and all social strata of Mediterranean populations with higher levels of genetically determined skin pigmentation.

An alternative traditional explanation, argyria (a disease causing a blue-grey skin tone after digestion of silver), is considered less valid as table silverware was not massively and regularly used by much of the nobility.

The genesis of the blue blood concept was the Spaniards who gave the world the notion that an aristocrat's blood is not red but blue. The Spanish nobility started taking shape around the ninth century in classic military fashion, occupying land as warriors on horseback. They were to continue the process for more than five hundred years, clawing back sections of the peninsula from its Moorish occupiers, and a nobleman demonstrated his pedigree by holding up his sword arm to display the filigree of blue-blooded veins beneath his pale skin--proof that his birth had not been contaminated by the dark-skinned enemy.

Answer 5

dark blue was in many places a colour worn only by the royals, as it was a very expensive dye that gave such a colour. so royalty = blue-wearing people

Answer 6

I believe "blue" represents the lack of oxygen so "far up" the class system.