blue screen

noun

plural blue screens

1

: a photographic technique in which a subject is filmed in front of a blue background so as to allow matte (see matte entry 3 sense 2) compositing of the film with other footage

also : the blue background compare green screen

2

: blue screen of death

Many blue screens are caused by bad memory modules or corrupted disk drives.

—George Cox

Examples of blue screen in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

Trillions up for grabs in the future and banks getting ready for it Microsoft says goodbye to the Windows blue screen of death Shares have jumped more than 33% this year, benefiting from cloud growth and the rise of artificial intelligence models. —Samantha Subin, CNBC, 30 June 2025

The category covers electronic or film images and is aimed at colourists/graders, matte work/glass shots, blue screen/chromakey etc. —Jazz Tangcay, Variety, 20 June 2025

Updated on October 20 with Microsoft’s new blue screen of death update warning. —Zak Doffman, Forbes, 20 Oct. 2024

May is proving interesting for Microsoft, with an emergency update to fix a nightmarish Bitlocker Recovery issue and even reports of blue screens of death. —Zak Doffman, Forbes.com, 24 May 2025

Word History

First Known Use

1965, in the meaning defined at sense 1

Rhymes for blue screen

• agin
• alkene
• allene
• ameen
• amin
• amine
• arene
• athene
• baleen
• beeline
• benzene
• between