From Middle English blister, from Old French blestre, from a Germanic source.

• (British) IPA: /ˈblɪstə(ɹ)/
• (America) IPA: /ˈblɪstɚ/

blister

1. A small bubble between the layers of the skin that contains watery or bloody fluid and is caused by friction and pressure, burning, freezing, chemical irritation, disease or infection.

   Hyponyms: bulla, vesicle, vesicula

2. A swelling on a plant.
3. (medicine) Something applied to the skin to raise a blister; a vesicatory or other applied medicine.
   • 1819–1824, [Lord Byron], Don Juan, London, (please specify |canto=I to XVII):

     'T is written in the Hebrew Chronicle, / How the physicians, leaving pill and potion, / Prescribed, by way of blister, a young belle, / When old King David's blood grew dull in motion, / And that the medicine answered very well […]

4. A bubble, as on a painted surface.
5. (roofing) An enclosed pocket of air, which may be mixed with water or solvent vapor, trapped between impermeable layers of felt or between the membrane and substrate.
6. A type of pre-formed packaging made from plastic that contains cavities.

   blister card

   blister pack

7. A cause of annoyance.
   • 1923, Pelham Grenville Wodehouse, The Inimitable Jeeves‎, page 39:

     I couldn't help thinking how dashed happy I could have contrived to be in this place if only Aunt Agatha and the other blisters had been elsewhere.

   • 2013, P.G. Wodehouse, Blandings: TV Tie-In, page 126 ↗:

     'We mustn't laugh about it, my boy. It's no joking matter. It's very wrong to shoot Mr Baxter.'
     'But he's a blister.'
     'He is a blister,' agreed Lord Emsworth, always fairminded. 'Nevertheless. . . . Remember, he is your tutor.'

   • 2017, Joe Archibald, The Willie Klump MEGAPACK®, page 302 ↗:

     Willie suddenly realized the heat really wasn't off the criminal persons, and he sprang into action. The blonde blister also recovered surprisingly fast and threw the big wordy tome at the Klump coco .

8. (uncountable) A form of smelted copper with a blistered surface.

• bleb
• blain

• French: ampoule, cloque, boursouflure, phlyctène
• German: Blase
• Italian: vescica, bolla
• Portuguese: bolha
• Russian: волды́рь
• Spanish: ampolla, ámpula (Mexico)

• French: cloque
• German: Blase
• Italian: bolla
• Portuguese: bolha
• Russian: пузы́рь

blister (blisters, present participle blistering; simple past and past participle blistered)

1. (transitive) To raise blisters on.

   a chemical agent that blisters the skin

   • 1610–1611 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tempest”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC ↗, [Act I, scene ii], page 4 ↗:

     Caliban: As wicked dewe, as ere my mother bruſh'd / With Rauens feather from vnwholeſome Fen / Drop on you both : A Southweſt blow on yee, / And bliſter you all ore.

2. (cooking, transitive) To sear after blaching.
3. (intransitive) To have a blister form.
4. (transitive) To criticise severely.
5. (intransitive) To break out in blisters.

• vesicate

• French: cloquer, se couvrir d'ampoules
• Spanish: ampollar

• French: critiquer, blâmer
• German: kritisieren

• German: Blasen werfen