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I am looking for the particular word (if it exists in English) for the ghastly blue colour of a dead person...

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    Cadavers and dead people are not generally blue. What colour exactly are you talking about?
    – Janus Bahs Jacquet
    Commented Jul 16, 2014 at 8:17
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    Unfortunately, I can't find an image to show you. I am talking about the colour of the face/lips, a mixture of blue, white and paleness. "The lurid blue"
    – Soulmirror
    Commented Jul 16, 2014 at 8:26
  • In my country we use the term "bruisy", because the colour has that bluish nuance similar to bruises.
    – james dean
    Commented Jul 16, 2014 at 9:31
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    Pallor is not blue, it is pale or white. We wouldn't say the pallor of his lifeless lips, if we're talking about the cyanosis of the corpse's lips.
    – pazzo
    Commented Jul 16, 2014 at 9:45
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    Depending on who you ask "ashen" is a pretty good word for this. Some people insist that is grey, but I wouldn't describe a dead person as blue unless cause of death was suffocation. I would say the ashen look of a very ill person is pretty close to someone already dead.
    – user39425
    Commented Jul 16, 2014 at 18:30

6 Answers 6

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Pathological blue coloration of the skin is known as cyanosis:

a bluish or purplish discoloration (as of skin) due to deficient oxygenation of the blood

A particularly notorious manifestation of this symptom occurred during the pan-global influenza epidemic of 1918-1919, and was termed heliotrope cyanosis because of the resemblance to the colour of the heliotrope flower, particularly in the faces of sufferers from the disease (a result of the deterioration of their lungs).

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    This answer has the advantage of being correct.
    – Edwin Ashworth
    Commented Jul 16, 2014 at 9:34
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    @EdwinAshworth - The fact that it is correct would not necessarily seen be seen as an advantage by many of this site's trigger-happy close-voters...
    – Erik Kowal
    Commented Jul 16, 2014 at 9:57
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    I only added the comment so that you would be targeted.
    – Edwin Ashworth
    Commented Jul 16, 2014 at 9:59
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    Trigger-happy? Syonara, blue man.
    – Edwin Ashworth
    Commented Jul 16, 2014 at 10:10
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    @EdwinAshworth - "Hi-Yo" is apparently more formal than I had realised.
    – Erik Kowal
    Commented Jul 16, 2014 at 10:31
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Livid or lividity is the correct term.

I can assure you that the recently dead are indeed blue. Rather, it depends upon the position, in situ at time of death and in the hours shortly after. Blood pools when there is no heartbeat. Where it pools, there is dark blue discoloration, visible very clearly.

See "postmortem lividity" or "cadaveric lividity" [1]

A purple coloration of dependent body parts, except in areas of contact pressure, appearing within one half to two hours after death, as a result of gravitational movement of blood within the vessels. The coloration begins to form immediately after death and is usually perceptible within two hours following the cessation of the circulation of the blood in the body.

Also, see "lividity" [2]

Say, do you watch crime shows such as CSI? Do you recognize the word lividity? What do they use this word in judging? The colour of corpses. Lividity names a discoloration caused by blood coagulating under the skin. This is one of the things that happen at a predictable time after death: Latin livor mortis.

It is different than the color of bruising. When there is bruising, the discoloration is mottled. It may be more deeply discolored, almost black-purple, but it isn't as sad or disturbing, as it indicates that there is still a heartbeat, and life.

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  • Livid, like cleave and overlook, contains its own antonym: as it means "furiously angry", it is associated (arguably improperly) with the red, flushed skin of a very angry person. From its etymology, I guess the Romans would say both "blue with anger" and "blue with jealousy", but modern English speakers have picked other colors.
    – Michael Lorton
    Commented Jul 29, 2014 at 16:50
  • @Malvolio this question is specifically about the coloration of a dead person, so the other meanings for livid would not apply as they are all attributes of living people.
    – Ellie Kesselman
    Commented Apr 25, 2020 at 16:22
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Pallor may suggest the idea:

  • a pale condition, esp when unnatural: fear gave his face a deathly pallor.

  • unusual or extreme paleness, as from fear, ill health, or death.

Source:Collins English Dictionary

Pallor mortis:

(Latin: pallor "paleness", mortis "of death") is a post mortem paleness which happens in those with light/white skin almost instantly (in the 15–25 minutes after the death) because of a lack of capillary circulation throughout the body.1 The blood sinks down into the lower parts (due to gravity) of the body creating livor mortis.

Source: http://en.m.wikipedia.org

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    Pallor of tissue describes the general decrease of its colour saturation, not an increase in its degree of blueness.
    – Erik Kowal
    Commented Jul 16, 2014 at 9:11
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    +1. You can use "pallid" if an adjective is needed.
    – khanhnguyendata
    Commented Jul 16, 2014 at 9:19
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    ... or 'cyanotic' if you want people to have a chance to grasp that 'blue' is involved.
    – Edwin Ashworth
    Commented Jul 16, 2014 at 10:08
  • @EdwinAshworth - as suggested in the notes by OP, the term should describe 'a mixture of blue, white and paleness'.
    – user66974
    Commented Jul 16, 2014 at 10:57
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    @Josh61 I've looked on the internet for images of bodies displaying cyanosis. Some are blueish and pallid, but more seem blueish / purplish on a red/reddish ground. I think the first comment by Janus exposes the weakness of the question. The question should be edited by OP, not clarification given in a later comment. // And I doubt that there is a single English word denoting both blueness and pallor.
    – Edwin Ashworth
    Commented Jul 16, 2014 at 11:18
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The other answers are good, but I think you have a better likelihood of being understood if you use the word ashen instead:

ashen (ˈæʃən)
adj
1. drained of colour; pallid
2. consisting of or resembling ashes
3. (Colours) of a pale greyish colour

Example sentences: The ashen body laid lifeless on the floor. Or His face turned ashen as his vitality waned. Or The Borg appear ashen and even deathly.1

In my experience, dead bodies do not typically look bluish, but that is more a matter of opinion than fact. Certainly, suffocated persons look bluish, but otherwise, I find they do not. They look pale or grayish even.

I would readily describe the look of a very ill person as ashen, and that same look carries into death as well.

  1. The Ashen face of Locutus
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Livid was once the common adjective (Google or Google-book livid corpse), and lividity the noun. My impression is that livid is now used colloquially only in the recent transferred sense of angry (from livid with rage), but it should be acceptable in a formal register.

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  • It is still used medically and especially forensically.
    – Ellie Kesselman
    Commented Apr 25, 2020 at 16:24
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Lunar white.........................

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    Welcome to EL&U. Answers on this network are expected to provide some explanation, including links to suitable references. Can you provide any examples in literature, for instance, where lunar white is used to refer to the pallor of a corpse? If not, why do you propose it?
    – choster
    Commented Jul 29, 2014 at 19:49

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