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It was while cardiac surgeon Jonathan Pitts Crick was talking about de-oxygenated blood returning to the heart – the blue blood – that it suddenly occurred to me to wonder why we use the phrase blue-blooded to mean aristocratic. What can be good, admirable or desirable about not having enough oxygen?
It seems unlikely that it could really be a dig, suggesting a class which is effete & decadent (in contrast to more lusty red-blooded types), since I always understood blue blood to be admired.
The Phrase Finder suggests that it a literal translation of the Spanish 'sangre azul', attributed to some of the oldest and proudest families of Castile, who claimed never to have intermarried with Moors, Jews, or other, darker skinned peoples. Their skin was whiter than white, fair enough for you to be able to see the blue in their veins.
The OED does not give us an etymology, but does include a quotation from Charles Kingsley’s Water Babies (published in 1863): Like an old blue-blooded hidalgo of Spain.
Yet another word to be careful about using.
Link
BBC Radio 4: The Listeners
Phrase finder: Blue blood
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Passing white
