4. To invoke or confer beneficial attributes or qualities upon; to invoke or confer a blessing on, as on
food.
Then he took the five loaves and the two fishes, and looking up to heaven, he blessed them.
Luke ix.
16.
5. To make the sign of the cross upon; to cross [Archaic] Holinshed.
6. To guard; to keep; to protect. [Obs.]
7. To praise, or glorify; to extol for excellences.
Bless the Lord, O my soul: and all that is within me, bless his holy name.
Ps. ciii. 1.
8. To esteem or account happy; to felicitate.
The nations shall bless themselves in him.
Jer. iv. 3.
9. To wave; to brandish. [Obs.]
And burning blades about their heads do bless.
Spenser.
Round his armed head his trenchant blade he blest.
Fairfax.
This is an old sense of the word, supposed by Johnson, Nares, and others, to have been derived from
the old rite of blessing a field by directing the hands to all parts of it. "In drawing [their bow] some fetch
such a compass as though they would turn about and bless all the field." Ascham.
Bless me! Bless us! an exclamation of surprise. Milton. To bless from, to secure, defend, or
preserve from. "Bless me from marrying a usurer." Shak.
To bless the doors from nightly harm.
Milton.
To bless with, To be blessed with, to favor or endow with; to be favored or endowed with; as, God
blesses us with health; we are blessed with happiness.
Blessed
(Bless"ed) a.
1. Hallowed; consecrated; worthy of blessing or adoration; heavenly; holy.
O, run; prevent them with thy humble ode,
And lay it lowly at his blessed feet.
Milton.
2. Enjoying happiness or bliss; favored with blessings; happy; highly favored.
All generations shall call me blessed.
Luke i. 48.
Towards England's blessed shore.
Shak.
3. Imparting happiness or bliss; fraught with happiness; blissful; joyful. "Then was a blessed time." "So
blessed a disposition." Shak.
4. Enjoying, or pertaining to, spiritual happiness, or heavenly felicity; as, the blessed in heaven.
Reverenced like a blessed saint.
Shak.
Cast out from God and blessed vision.
Milton.