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A.Word.A.Day--cordon bleu

Red: Stop. Green: Go. These two colors have universally accepted meanings, but only when it comes to traffic. Meanings of colors change across cultures, and even within a culture. If your business is in the black, that's a good thing, but if you are blackballed, well, that's a problem. Red ink is bad news but a red-letter day is a happy occasion. A blue moon is a very long period of time but a blue law has nothing to do with length.

This week we'll meet five terms related to colors -- blue, red, white, purple, and blue again -- and how they affect words' shades of meaning.

cordon bleu (kawr don BLOO)

adjective: Of the highest class.

noun: A person of great distinction in a field, especially applied to a chef.

[From French, literally, blue ribbon. Under the Bourbon kings in France, a blue ribbon was worn by knights of the highest order.]

"On the one table was the university lecturer, applying critical faculties with academic rigour; on the next was the basic skills lecturer, on auto-pilot to praise every effort, even if the results were not quite cordon bleu."
Gill Moore; If You Want Respect Then Wear a Suit; The Times Educational Supplement (London, UK); Sep 22, 2006.

See more usage examples of cordon bleu in Vocabulary.com's dictionary.

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