“Black and blue” refers to bruises caused by blood under the skin. It’s often used to describe physical conflict, but can also refer to injuries from inanimate objects. “Black eye” can also mean damage to one’s reputation. “Blue Monday” may refer to punishment of deserting sailors. These idioms belong to the category of medical idioms, which can express real or abstract situations.
When English speakers speak of someone being “black and blue” they are usually referring to the condition of being bruised. Bruises are what happen when blood builds up under the skin, creating a darker hue on the skin’s surface. These colors often include different shades of blue and black, as well as brown and gray.
The sentence uses color to create an idiomatic expression. A common form of this expression is when someone talks about “beating” someone “black and blue,” which means hitting them until they’re literally covered in bruises. In a general sense, this phrase is most often used to talk about conflict and violence between individuals, although some people may refer to being “black and blue” from contact with an inanimate object. For example, if a man runs into a chair and injures his leg, he might say, “My leg is black and blue,” even though the bruise isn’t all that bad.
Another similar phrase is very common in English. It was born from the idea of hitting the head and causing bruises around the eye. Someone who bruises their face around their eye might say, “I have a back eye.” Over time, the term “black eye” has also come to mean anything that damages a person’s reputation.
Opinions differ on the origin of the phrase, but it is generally believed to have developed as a way to describe skin colors after bruises. A corresponding idiom that is much more obscure is the phrase “blue Monday”. It is important to note here that the use of the word blue to express sadness is very common in the English language. In the particular case of “Blue Monday,” however, some speech historians have argued that this idiom relates to a reference to bruises. The idea is that in the past, Monday was a weekday designated to punish deserting sailors, where offenders were taken to a common place and beaten until they were seriously injured.
The phrase “black and blue” belongs to the somewhat unusual category of medical idioms. Many of these exist in the English language, some of which are phrasal verbs like “catch cold” that refer to particular conditions. A general medical idiom that equates to “black and blue” is another that describes a condition: when people talk about being “under the weather” they are simply referring to being sick in a broad sense. These types of “conditional” medical idioms can help express real illnesses or other more abstract situations.
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