Completely gone or disappeared; entirely out of sight or reach; without a trace. Usually preceded by “vanish” or a similar verb. The brutal dictatorship was so mercilessly efficient that anyone who stood up against it soon vanished into the blue.

undetermined; not assigned a specific value

C1. If something happens out of the blue, it is completely unexpected: One day, out of the blue, she announced that she was leaving.

Be depressed or sad, as in I was really feeling blue after she told me she was leaving. The use of blue to mean “sad” dates from the late 1300s. See also blue funk, def. 2; have the blues.

Blue calls to mind feelings of calmness or serenity. It is often described as peaceful, tranquil, secure, and orderly. Blue is often seen as a sign of stability and reliability.

Example Sentences

1. Out of the blue, a deer came in front of my car.
2. Then, out of the blue Maggie arrived.
3. He did not expect his book to do so well, the award nomination came out of the blue for him.
4. Junior running away from home was out of the blue.
5. The divorce news came out of the blue.

Example Sentences

1. The earthquakes hits once in a blue moon in this part of the earth, we never felt it.
2. I don’t know why she bought that music system – she uses it once in a blue moon.
3. “I think my grandson doesn’t love me anymore, he comes to see me only once in a blue moon.”

The idiom “out of the blue” means that something happens when you are not expecting it to or something happens suddenly. The idiom “out of the blue” evolved from an older idiom.

A musician comes from”out of the blue” and gets real famous real fast. “Into the black” is the expression used to describe going from losing money to making money. So it describes a musicisn achieving sudden and unexpected fame and wealth.

‘So remember, it’s better to burn out than fade away’- Kurt Cobain.

The line, “It’s better to burn out than to fade away”, was included in Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain’s suicide note in 1994.

Burning out is a metaphor for living an exciting, ambitious life; one where you expend all of your energy early on, possibly even dying young like many rock stars. Fading away would be to simply live safely, not take any risks, etc.

Burnout is the result of job stress stemming from the numerous emotional hazards of the profession. It affects most counselors, psychotherapists or mental health workers at some point in their careers. It manifests primarily as emotional exhaustion, “emotional fatigue” or “emotional overload.”

to slowly disappear, lose importance, or become weaker: The voices became louder and closer and then faded away again. As the years passed, the memories faded away.