Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
Definition: Bluegrass |
BluegrassNoun1. Any of various grasses of the genus Poa. 2. An area in central Kentucky notied for it bluegrass and thoroughbred horses. 3. A type of country music played at a rapid tempo on banjos and guitars. Source: WordNet 1.7.1 Copyright © 2001 by Princeton University. All rights reserved. |
Date "bluegrass" was first used in popular English literature: sometime before 1899. (references) |
(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)
Bluegrass has three principal meanings, the second two both deriving from the first listed. Bluegrass is a genus of grasses, Poa. Bluegrass music is a form of American roots music. The Bluegrass region is an area of Kentucky and Ohio states, USA.Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Bluegrass."
(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)
Bluegrass refers to a genus of grasseses, some of which look bluish when in flower. The term often refers to a particular species, Kentucky bluegrass, Poa pratensis, that is commonly grown in central Kentucky and in lawns throughout the eastern United States.
Bluegrass Scientific classification
Kingdom: Plantae Division: Magnoliophyta Class: Liliopsida Order: Poales Family: Poaceae Genus: Poa Species
- Poa pratensis - Kentucky bluegrass
- Full List of Poa species
Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Bluegrass (grass)."
(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)
Bluegrass music is a form of American roots music with its own roots in the Irish traditional music and Scottish traditional music of immigrants from the British Isles (particularly the Scots-Irish immigrants of Appalachia),as well as the music of African-American slaves. It was this tradition that A.P. Carter used and collected for the songs played and written by the Carter Family. Bluegrass songs are played with each melody instrument switching off playing the melody each time through, while the others revert to backup; this is in contrast to old-time music, in which all instruments play the melody together, when indeed they are playing together rather than solo.The bluegrass style was invented in the first half of the 20th century by mandolinist Bill Monroe and named for his band, the Blue Grass Boys, formed 1939. Monroe's 1945-48 band, which featured banjo player Earl Scruggs, singer/guitarist Lester Flatt, fiddler Chubby Wise and bassist Cedric Rainwater, created the definitive sound and instrumental configuration that remains the model to this day. Unlike mainstream country music, bluegrass continues to rely on acoustic stringed instruments. The fiddle, banjo, acoustic guitar or folk guitar, mandolin, and upright bass are sometimes joined by the dobro(also known as a resophonic guitar), and a bass guitar is occasionally substituted for the upright bass.
Besides instrumentation, the distinguishing characteristics of bluegrass include vocal harmonies featuring two, three, or four parts, often featuring a dissonant or modal sound in the highest voice; an emphasis on traditional songs, often with sentimental or religious themes; and improvised instrumental solos.
Notable artists:
The following are/were also notable bluegrass artists, despite being better known for their contributions to other musical genres:
- Bill Monroe
- Flatt and Scruggs
- Doc Watson
- John Hartford
- Lester Flatt
- The Stanley Brothers
- Ricky Skaggs
Movies about bluegrass or featuring bluegrass themes:
- Béla Fleck
- Jerry Douglas
- Jerry Garcia (Old and in the Way)
- Dolly Parton
- David Grisman
- O Brother, Where Art Thou
- That High Lonesome Sound
Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Bluegrass music."
Synonym: BluegrassSynonym: blue grass (n). (additional references) |
Crosswords: Bluegrass |
| English words defined with "bluegrass": Bluegrass Country, Bluegrass Region. (references) |
| Domain | Usage | |
Screenplays | This is a cross, ah, of Bluegrass, Kentucky Bluegrass, Featherbed Bent, and Northern California Sensemilia (Caddyshack; writing credit: Brian Doyle-Murray; Harold Ramis) | |
Movie/TV Titles | ||
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | ||
| Domain | Title | ||
Books | |||
Periodicals |
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Theater & Movies | |||
Music |
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Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |||
| Thumbnail | Description & Credit | Thumbnail | Description & Credit |
 | Switchgrass pasture in Union County, Iowa. Native grasses including switchgrass offer pasture for cattle in mid-summer when cool season pastures such as bluegrass are less productive. Credit: Lynn Betts. |  | Hereford cow and calf on bluegrass pasture. Credit: Lynn Betts. |
 | Using a grass drill to interseed legumes in a bluegrass pasture in southern Iowa to get more production. Credit: Lynn Betts. |  | Switchgrass pasture in Union County, Iowa. Native grasses including switchgrass offer pasture for cattle in mid-summer when cool season pastures such as bluegrass are less productive. Credit: Lynn Betts. |
 | Highway in bluegrass section near Lexington, Kentucky. Credit: Library of Congress. |  | Horse farm in Bluegrass country. Fayette County, Kentucky. Credit: Library of Congress. |
 | Walnut Hall, horse breeding farm in bluegrass region near Lexington, Kentucky. Credit: Library of Congress. |  | Kentucky Bluegrass county. Fayette County. Credit: Library of Congress. |
Source: pictures compiled by the editor from various references; see picture credits. | |||
| Play | Caption |
 | Saw plucking; reverberate; reverberation; vibrate; vibration; bluegrass music. |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| "Bluegrass" is generally used as a noun (singular) -- approximately 90.00% of the time. "Bluegrass" is used about 10 times out of a sample of 100 million words spoken or written in English. Its rank is based on over 700,000 words used in the English language. Some parts-of-speech are not covered due to the samples used by the British National Corpus. (note: percents less than one-hundredth of one percent have been omitted) |
| Parts of Speech | Percent | Usage per 100 Million Words | Rank in English |
| Noun (singular) | 90% | 9 | 117,287 |
| Lexical Verb (infinitive) | 10% | 1 | 339,140 |
| Total | 100.00% | 10 | N/A |
Source: compiled by the editor from several corpora; see credits.
Expressions using "bluegrass": bluegrass Country ♦ bluegrass Region ♦ bluegrass State ♦ Kentucky bluegrass. Additional references. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. |
| The following statistics estimate the number of searches per day across the major English-language search engines as identified by various trade publications. Hyperlinks lead to commercial use of the expression at Amazon.com. |
| Language | Translations for "bluegrass"; alternative meanings/domain in parentheses. | |
Danish | løgrapgræs (bulbous bluegrass, bulbous meadow grass, sweet tussock), engrapgræs (common meadow grass, Kentucky bluegrass, smooth-stalked meadowgrass), almindelig rapgræs (rough meadow grass, rough-stalk bluegrass, rough-stalk meadowgrass, rough-stalked meadow grass, rough-stalked meadowgrass). (various references) | |
Dutch | veldbeemdgras (common meadow grass, Kentucky bluegrass, smooth-stalked meadowgrass), ruw beemdgras (rough meadow-grass), knolbeemdgras (bulbous bluegrass, bulbous meadow grass, sweet tussock). (various references) | |
Finnish | sipulinurmikka (bulbous bluegrass, bulbous meadow grass, sweet tussock), niittynurmikka (common meadow grass, Kentucky bluegrass, smooth-stalked meadowgrass), karheanurmikka (rough meadow grass, rough-stalk bluegrass, rough-stalked meadow grass). (various references) | |
French | paturin bulbeux (bulbous bluegrass), pâturin rude (rough-stalk bluegrass), pâturin des prés (Kentucky bluegrass), pâturin commun (rough-stalk bluegrass), herbe bleue du Kentucky (Kentucky bluegrass). (various references) | |
German | Wiesen-Rispengras (common meadow grass, Kentucky bluegrass, smooth-stalked meadowgrass), knolliges Rispengras (bulbous bluegrass, bulbous meadow grass, sweet tussock), gemeines Rispengras (rough meadow grass, rough-stalk bluegrass, rough-stalked meadow grass). (various references) | |
Greek | βολβοπόα (bulbous bluegrass, bulbous meadow grass, sweet tussock), πόα η κοινή (rough meadow grass, rough-stalk bluegrass, rough-stalked meadow grass), πόα η βολβώδης (bulbous bluegrass, bulbous meadow grass, sweet tussock), πόα η λειμώνιος (common meadow grass, Kentucky bluegrass, smooth-stalked meadowgrass), λεία λειβαδοπόα (common meadow grass, Kentucky bluegrass, smooth-stalked meadowgrass), τραχεία λειβαδοπόα (rough meadow grass, rough-stalk bluegrass, rough-stalked meadow grass). (various references) | |
Hungarian | laposszárú perje (Canada bluegrass). (various references) | |
Indonesian | rumput biru. (various references) | |
Italian | spannocchina (rough meadow grass, rough-stalk bluegrass, rough-stalked meadow grass), poa pratense (common meadow grass, Kentucky bluegrass, smooth-stalked meadowgrass), poa comune (rough meadow grass, rough-stalk bluegrass, rough-stalked meadow grass), gramigna dei prati (common meadow grass, Kentucky bluegrass, smooth-stalked meadowgrass), gramigna bulbosa (bulbous bluegrass, bulbous meadow grass, sweet tussock), fienarola dei prati (common meadow grass, Kentucky bluegrass, smooth-stalked meadowgrass), fienarola bulbosa (bulbous bluegrass, bulbous meadow grass, sweet tussock). (various references) | |
Manx | faiyr gorrym. (various references) | |
Pig Latin | uegrassblay.(various references) | |
Portuguese | poa comum (rough meadow grass, rough-stalk bluegrass, rough-stalked meadow grass), erva de febra (common meadow grass, Kentucky bluegrass, smooth-stalked meadowgrass). (various references) | |
Spanish | poa pratense (common meadow grass, Kentucky bluegrass, smooth-stalked meadowgrass), poa de los prados (common meadow grass, Kentucky bluegrass, smooth-stalked meadowgrass), poa comun (rough meadow grass, rough-stalk bluegrass, rough-stalked meadow grass), poa bulbosa (bulbous bluegrass, bulbous meadow grass, sweet tussock), poa aspera (rough meadow grass, rough-stalk bluegrass, rough-stalked meadow grass). (various references) | |
Swedish | knölgröe (bulbous bluegrass, bulbous meadow grass, sweet tussock), kärrgröe (rough meadow grass, rough-stalk bluegrass, rough-stalked meadow grass), ängsgröe (common meadow grass, Kentucky bluegrass, smooth-stalked meadowgrass). (various references) | |
Thai | เพลงคันทรี่ของอเมริกัน. (various references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various translation references. | ||
| Language | Period | Translations |
| Latin | 500 BCE-Modern | Poa annua L., Poa bulbosa L., Poa compressa L., Poa fertilis Hos., Poa nemoralis, Poa palustris L., Poa pratensis L., Poa trivialis. (various references) |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references. | ||
Derivations | |
Words beginning with "bluegrass": bluegrasses. (additional references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references). | |
| # of Phoneme Matches | Pronunciation | Word(s) rhyming with "bluegrass" (pronounced bluw"gra's) |
| 4 | -g r a' s | eelgrass. |
| 3 | -r a' s | sassafras. |
Source: compiled by the editor (additional references); see credits. | ||
Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams | |
| Words within the letters "a-b-e-g-l-r-s-s-u" | |
-1 letter: garbless. | |
-2 letters: abusers, arguses, barless, belugas, braless, buglers, bulgers, burgess, burgles, garbles, largess, rubasse, saugers, saurels, subsale, surbase. | |
-3 letters: abuser, abuses, argles, argues, assure, augers, bagels, balers, barges, belgas, beluga, blares, blears, bugler, bugles, bulger, bulges, burgle, bursae, bursal, bursas, burses, gables, garble, gasser, glares, gluers, gruels, lagers, larges, lasers, lugers, rassle, rubles. | |
| Words containing the letters "a-b-e-g-l-r-s-s-u" | |
+2 letters: bluegrasses. | |
+5 letters: bremsstrahlung. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. SCRABBLE® is a registered trademark. All intellectual property rights in and to the game are owned in the U.S.A and Canada by Hasbro Inc., and throughout the rest of the world by J.W. Spear & Sons Limited of Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, a subsidiary of Mattel Inc. Mattel and Spear are not affiliated with Hasbro. | |
| 1. Definition 2. Synonyms 3. Crosswords 4. Usage: Modern | 5. Usage: Commercial 6. Images: Slideshow 7. Images: Photo Album 8. Sounds | 9. Usage Frequency 10. Expressions 11. Expressions: Internet 12. Translations: Modern | 13. Translations: Ancient 14. Derivations 15. Rhymes 16. Anagrams | 17. Bibliography |
Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
