- blind
- blind adj Blind, sightless, purblind mean lacking or deficient in the power to see or to discriminate objects.Blind is used to imply absence or deprivation or gross restriction of the power of vision, either by congenital defect or as a result of disease or of an injury to the organs of vision{
the very years when the blind Milton was dictating the last books of Paradise Lost to his amanuensis— Altick
}{if the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch— Mt 15:l4
}It is as often employed in an extended sense, especially as implying a lack of the mental, moral, or spiritual vision essential to the perception or discernment of what actually exists or what is really true{His divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness .... But he that lacketh these things is blind— 2 Pet l:3-9
}{expound the merits to me if you think me blind— Justice Holmes
}Blind is also applicable to things devoid of intelligence or of ability to know whither they are moving or tending{blind, mechanical forces of society— Wilde
}or to acts, emotions, and attitudes which are the result of or which produce mental, moral, or spiritual blindness{blind terror
}{blind acceptance of authority
}or to something (as a space or a structure) that is so dark or obscure or obstructed that one cannot see through, into, or around it{a blind wall
}{blind alley
}{a blind corner
}Sightless is sometimes the preferred term when permanent total blindness is implied{the sightless Homer
}{Rehabilitation of the sightless and partially blind— Current Biog.
}Purblind is disused in the sense of totally blind{purblind Argus, all eyes and no sight— Shak.
}but it persists in the sense of nearly blind, or without sight enough to do one's work or make one's way successfully{purblind with cataracts, he gets a living by misprinting, by hand, a four-page paper— Gerald Kersh
}More usually, purblind implies the imperfection or even the absence of mental, moral, or spiritual vision and usually connotes obtuseness or shortsightedness that comes from ignorance, stupidity, or indifference{the intolerable narrowness and the purblind conscience of the society— George Eliot
}{in Washington purblind congressmen, sensitive only to the demands of big business, fastened ... the McKinley tariff— Nevins & Commager
}Contrasted words: seeing, perceiving, discerning, noticing, noting (see SEE): *aware, alive, conscious, sensible, cognizant, awakeblind n Blind, shade, shutter mean a device that serves as a screen for a window.Blind is used especially in British countries to designate a window covering, usually of fabric and operating on a roller, that shuts out the sunlight or at night prevents those outside from seeing in. In this sense shade is more usual in the United States. The use of the term blind as an element of or as a shortened form for Venetian blind is common both in American and British countries. Venetian blind refers to a flexible inside curtain composed of light and narrow laths fixed on tapes which may be raised or lowered as desired and whose laths may be opened or closed according to the amount of light needed. But blind (or blinds, since a pair of the devices is usually fitted to a single window) is used chiefly for a device fitted on the outside or on the inside of a window, made of a wooden frame with slats that are movable or fixed, and typically hinged at the side so that when opened it lies flat against the outside wall or folds into an inner recess of the window frame. This device is also called a shutter. But shutter is actually a more inclusive term and implies a device that can be shut (as to exclude light, rain, or wind, to insure privacy, or to make safe against intruders). The term therefore includes such devices as those made of solid panels whether used singly or in pairs or sets to each window, and whether left permanently in place or hung when desired{storm shutters
}{hurricane shutters
}{each night the shopkeeper put up his shutters
}
New Dictionary of Synonyms. 2014.
