true blue

¹ American  

noun

1. a nonfading blue dye or pigment.

2. a person who is true-blue.

3. (in the 17th century) the color adopted by the Covenanters in contradistinction to the royal red.

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true-blue ² American  

[troo-bloo] / ˈtruˈblu /

adjective

1. unwaveringly loyal or faithful; staunch; unchangingly true.

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true-blue British  

adjective

1. unwaveringly or staunchly loyal, esp to a person, a cause, etc

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noun

1. a staunch royalist or Conservative

true blue Idioms  

1. Loyal, faithful, as in You can count on her support; she's true blue. This expression alludes to the idea of blue being the color of constancy, but the exact allusion is disputed. One theory holds it alludes to the unchanging blue sky, another to the fastness of a blue dye that will not run. Blue has been the identifying color of various factions in history. In the mid-1600s the Scottish Covenanters, who pledged to uphold Presbyterianism, were called true blue (as opposed to red, the color of the royalists). In the 1800s the same term came to mean “staunchly Tory,” and in America, “politically sound.”

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Etymology

Origin of true blue¹

First recorded in 1665–75

Origin of true-blue²

First recorded in 1665–75; origin uncertain; perhaps associated with the Covenanters (Scottish Presbyterians) of the 17th century, whose flag, a white St. Andrew’s Cross on a blue field (still the national flag of Scotland), was in opposition to the red scarves of the Royalist cavalry