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blindness

American  
[blahynd-nis] / ˈblaɪnd nɪs /

noun

  1. the inability to see; the condition of having severely impaired or absolutely no sense of sight.

    Patients are first asked if their blindness is congenital or the result of injury or disease.

  2. an unwillingness or inability to perceive or understand; lack of judgment; ignorance.

    Your blindness to this behavior has allowed his anxiety to worsen.
blindness Scientific  
/ blīnd′nĭs /

  1. A lack or impairment of vision in which maximal visual acuity after correction by refractive lenses is one-tenth normal vision or less in the better eye. Blindness can be genetic but is usually acquired as a result of injury, cataracts, or diseases such as glaucoma or diabetes. In Asia and Africa, trachoma is a common infectious cause of blindness.

Etymology

Origin of blindness

First recorded before 1000; blind ( def. ) + -ness ( def. )

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

Dragging the incapacitated along on sledges, the rescuers struggled back to the Advance, enduring snow blindness and frostbite.

From Literature

Mange is a common issue for foxes, especially during winter, with many foxes dying or being left with serious injuries such as blindness.

From BBC

One woman, who has face blindness, has difficulty watching films with more than four characters, but her companion helped to explain who is who when she got confused.

From BBC

She says the International Working Group’s criteria requiring cognitive impairment to diagnose Alzheimer’s disease is problematic, likening it to requiring someone with diabetes to wait until they have blindness or kidney failure to be diagnosed.

From The Wall Street Journal

The answer isn’t ideological blindness so much as methodological constraint.

From Barron's

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023

Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.