Meaning

verb cry plaintively

adjective disposed to avoid notice; ; (`blate' is a Scottish term for bashful)

originBorrowed from Scots blate (“timid, sheepish”), apparently a conflation of: * Northern Middle English *blate, *blait (“pale, ghastly, terrified”), from Old English blāt (“pale, livid, ghastly”), from Proto-West Germanic *blait (“pale, discoloured”), from Proto-Germanic *blaitaz, from Proto-Indo-European *bʰleyd- (“pale, pallid”); * Middle English bleth, bleath (“timid, soft”), from Old English…

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 3.0