5. A spot made on trees by chipping off a piece of the bark, usually as a surveyor's mark. Three blazes in a perpendicular line on the same tree indicating a legislative road, the single blaze a settlement or neighborhood road. Carlton. In a blaze, on fire; burning with a flame; filled with, giving, or reflecting light; excited or exasperated. — Like blazes, furiously; rapidly. [Low] "The horses did along like blazes tear." Poem in Essex dialect.
Note: In low language in the U. S., blazes is frequently used of something extreme or excessive, especially of something very bad; as, blue as blazes. Neal.
Syn. — Blaze, Flame. A blaze and a flame are both produced by burning gas. In blaze the idea of light rapidly evolved is prominent, with or without heat; as, the blaze of the sun or of a meteor. Flame includes a stronger notion of heat; as, he perished in the flames.
BLAZE
Blaze, v. i. [imp. & p. p. Blazed; p. pr. & vb. n. Blazing.]
1. To shine with flame; to glow with flame; as, the fire blazes.
2. To send forth or reflect glowing or brilliant light; to show a blaze. And far and wide the icy summit blazed. Wordsworth.
3. To be resplendent. Macaulay. To blaze away, to discharge a firearm, or to continue firing; — said esp. of a number of persons, as a line of soldiers. Also used (fig.) of speech or action. [Colloq.]
BLAZE
Blaze, v. t.
1. To mark (a tree) by chipping off a piece of the bark. I found my way by the blazed trees. Hoffman.
2. To designate by blazing; to mark out, as by blazed trees; as, to blaze a line or path. Champollion died in 1832, having done little more than blaze out the road to be traveled by others. Nott.