Forms: 1– blind, (4 blynt, 4–6 blynd(e, 4–7 blinde, 8– Sc. blin’). [A com. Teut. adj.: OE. blind = OS. blind (MDu. blint(d), Du. blind), ON. blindr (Da., Sw. blind), OHG. blint, (MHG. blint(d), mod.G. blind), Goth. blinds:—OTeut. *blindo-z, of which the Aryan form would be *bhlendh-: cf. Lith. bléndza-s blind, blęsti to become dark, Lettish blendu I do not see clearly, OSlav. blĕdŭ pale, dim, pointing perhaps to an earlier sense ‘become dim or dark’ (Franck).]
I. Literal.
1. Destitute of the sense of sight, whether by natural defect or by deprivation.
c. 1000. Ags. Gosp., Mark x. 46. Bartimeus sæt blind wið þone weʓ wædla.
c. 1200. Ormin, 1859. He wass æness wurrþenn blind.
c. 1365. Chaucer, A. B. C., 105. O verrey light of eyen that ben blynde.
c. 1420. Chron. Vilod., 3632. As bleynde as a betulle.
1562. J. Heywood, Prov. & Epigr. (1867), 60. Blinde men should iudge no colours.
1571. Golding, Calvin on Ps. xvi. 5. Blynd folke runne gadding hither and thither like mad Bedlems.
1618. Latham, 2nd Bk. Falconry (1633), 50. After the old Prouerbe, Who so blinde, as he that will not see?
1705. Hickeringill, Priest-cr., IV. (1721), 238. Hittee Missee, happy go lucky, as the blind Man kill’d the Crow.
1712. Addison, Spect., No. 464, ¶ 5. Jupiter … left him to strole about the World in the blind Condition wherein Chremylus beheld him.
1859. Masson, Milton, I. 737. Galileo, frail and blind.
b. Temporarily deprived of sight, as when dazzled with a bright light.
1483. Caxton, Cato, F ij. Lyke hym whyche is blynde of the rayes of the sonne.
c. Used punningly of a needle: Eyeless.
a. 1800. Cowper, Manual more anc. Art of Poetry. The smaller sort, which matrons use, Not quite so blind as they.
d. absol. A blind person, esp. as pl. Those who are blind, as a section of the community.
c. 1000. Ags. Gosp., Matt. xx. 30. And þa sæton tweʓen blinde wið þone weʓ.
a. 1300. Cursor M., 13527. Wit þis blind þar can he mete. Ibid., 14370. Crepels gan, þe blind haf sight.
1611. Bible, Matt. xv. 14. If the blinde lead the blinde, both shall fall into the ditch.
Mod. The Royal Asylum for the Blind.
e. (attrib. of prec.) Of, pertaining to, or for the use of the blind as a class: as blind asylum.
1881. Durham Univ. Jrnl., 12 Nov. The question of blind education.
1882. Pall Mall Gaz., 8 June, 7/2. The requirements for the blind scholarships are similar.
II. fig. Without perception.
2. Of persons, their faculties, etc.; also transf. of things: Lacking in mental perception, discernment or foresight; destitute of intellectual, moral or spiritual light.
c. 1000. Ags. Gosp., Matt. xxiii. 17. Ealá ʓe dyseʓan and blindan.
c. 1200. Ormin, 16954. Unnwis mann iss blunnt and blind.
a. 1340. Hampole, Pr. Consc., 240. Four thynges … Þat mase a mans wytt blynd.
c. 1385. Wyclif, Serm., Sel. Wks. II. 230. Blynde jugement of men.
1594. T. B., La Primaud. Fr. Acad., II. 2. They are called blind in holy scripture, that haue not the true knowledge of God.
1645. Milton, Tetrach., Wks. (1851), 273. The blindest and corruptest times of Popedom.
1775. Sheridan, Duenna, II. ii. 201. How blind some parents are!
1877. Mozley, Univ. Serm., i. 8. That would be a blind and mistaken inference.
b. Const. to (in obs.).
1662. Gerbier, Brief Disc. (1663), 8. Surveyours who … are blind in the faults which their Workmen commit.
1759. Franklin, Ess., Wks. 1840, III. 368. The assembly chose … to be blind to the artificial part of his speech.
1856. Trevelyan, in Life Macaulay, II. xiv. 460. To be blind to the merits of a great author.
c. Blind side: the unguarded, weak or assailable side of a person or thing, weakness; also, formerly, the unsightly or unpresentable side.
1655. Gurnall, Chr. in Arm. (1845), 27. The imperfect knowledge Saints have here is Satan’s advantage against them: he often takes them on the blind side.
1711. Swift, Lett. (1767), III. 147. This is the blindside of my lodging out of town; I must expect such inconveniencies.
1884. Chr. World, 4 Sept., 657/1. The forts which they were enabled … to approach on their blind side.
3. Undiscriminating, for which no reason can be given; inconsiderate, heedless, reckless.
c. 1340. Cursor M., 4116 (Trin.). To haue her wille blynde.
c. 1450. Crt. of Love, cliii. Blind apetite of lust.
1615. Bedwell, Moham. Imp., II. § 65. The Disciples … became blind and fearelesse.
1753. Hogarth, Anal. Beauty, xi. 91. The blind veneration that generally is paid to antiquity.
1822. Hazlitt, Table-t., I. xi. 254. Self-will and blind prejudice.
1854. Dickens, Hard T., V. 14. Who came round the corner with such blind speed.
a. 1859. Macaulay, Hist. Eng., V. 254. His enemies struck at him with blind fury.
b. Purposeless; fortuitous, random.
1873. Browning, Red Cott. Nt.-cap, 177. Service that’s blind and objectless—A servant toiling for no master’s good.
4. Not possessing intelligence or consciousness; acting without discernment.
1692. Bentley, Boyle Lect., vi. 198. It is the Product not of blind Mechanism or blinder Chance.
1853. Maurice, Proph. & Kings, ix. 152. It is Will and not a blind necessity which rules in the armies of heaven.
1865. Mozley, Mirac., vii. 292, note. Throughout the whole realm of nature blind agents or physical laws have been discovered.
† 5. That blinds or misleads: false, deceitful. Obs.
1393. Gower, Conf., I. 73. He … with blinde tales so her ladde That all his will of her he hadde.
1526. Pilgr. Perf. 34. His blynde prophecyes and deceytfull myracles.
1559. Mirr. Mag., Jack Cade, v. 3. Iustly called false and blynde.
III. Transferred.
6. Enveloped in darkness; dark, obscure. arch.
a. 1000. Be Domes Dæge, 230. Sauwle on liʓe On blindum scræfe byrnað & yrnað.
a. 1300. Cursor M., 3463. Bituix vnborn a batel blind.
1571. trans. Buchanan’s Detect. Mary, in H. Campbell’s Love-lett. Mary (1824), 152. Go hide yourself in a blind hole.
1606. Holland, Sueton., 237. Meeting noe bodie [they] searched … everie blind corner.
1650. R. Stapylton, Strada’s Low-C. Warres, VIII. 11. The blind and darksome night.
1666. Pepys, Diary (1879), IV. 94. The little blind bed-chamber.
1809. J. Barlow, Columb., III. 251. Dark fiend, that hides his blind abode.
† b. Not lighted, having its light extinguished or cut off. Blind lantern: a dark lanter.
1393. Langl., P. Pl., C. XX. 228. Ȝe brenneþ, ac ȝe blaseþ nat · and þat is a blynde bekne.
1581. B. Riche, Farewell Mil. Profession (1846), 168. One of these little Lanters, that thei call blinde Lanterns (because thei tourne them, and hide their light when they liste).
1591. in De Foe, Hist. Ch. Scot., Addend. 56. Two Candlesticks with Two Blind Candles.
1705. Hickeringill, Priest-Cr., II. v. 55. They adore the bare Altar, and blind Candles.
7. Dim, as opposed to bright or clear; dim, like faded writing: indistinct, obscure. Now mostly fig.
c. 1325. E. E. Allit. P., A. 83. Þe sunnes bemez bot blo & blynde.
1398. Trevisa, Barth. De P. R., XVI. xlvii. (1495), 569. We vse to call al manere of precyous stones, that ben not precyous and shynynge, blynde.
1536. Bellenden, Cron. Scot. (1821), I. 254. Auld bukis … writtin craftly on rude and hard parchement; bot thay wer sa blind, we micht nocht reid ilk tent wourd.
1552. Huloet, Blynde letters or wrytynges, caducæ literæ.
1852. Hawthorne, Grandf. Chair, II. iv. 20. Written in such a queer, blind … hand.
b. of a road or path: (see quot.)
1815. Scott, Guy M., xxii. Let him look along that blind road, by which I mean the track so slightly marked by the passengers’ footsteps, that it can but be traced by a slight shade of verdure from the darker heath around it, and being only visible to the eye when at some distance, ceases to be distinguished while the foot is actually treading it. Ibid. (1820), Monast., xxiii.
1854. H. Miller, Sch. & Schm., i. 1. A blind pathway … winding through the stunted heath.
c. Used of a letter indistinctly or imperfectly addressed. Blind man, officer, reader, a post office employé who deals with such letters.
1864. W. Lewins, Her Maj. Mails, 204. The Blind Letter-Office is the receptacle for all illegible, misspelt, misdirected, or insufficiently addressed letters or packets.
1883. Pall Mall Gaz., 20 Aug., 12/1. A few specimen letters which have recently racked the brains of the ‘blind readers’ at the Post Office.
1885. Pall Mall Gaz., 13 May, 5/1. The ingenuity of the ‘blind’ men of the Post Office.
8. Out of sight, out of the way, secret, obscure, privy. With blind alley cf. 11.
c. 1386. Chaucer, Chan. Yem. Prol. & T., 105. Lurkynge in hernes and in lanes blynde.
1557. North, trans. Gueuara’s Diall Pr. (1582), 409 a. Feasting … their secret friends in gardeins and blind tauerns.
1583. Stanyhurst, Æneis, II. (Arb.), 66. Through crosse blynd allye we iumble.
1660. Blount, Boscobel, II. (1680), 13. To a blind Inn in Charmouth.
1661. Pepys, Diary, 15 Oct. To St. Paul’s Churchyard to a blind place where Mr. Goldsborough was to meet me.
1814. Scott, Wav., xliii. Bailie Macwheeble having retired to … some blind change-house.
b. Of a way or path: the notion of ‘secret, obscure,’ is often mixed up with those of ‘difficult to trace, confused or confusing, intricate, uncertain.’
a. 1593. H. Smith, Wks. (1866–7), I. 218. Like a mark of knowledge in the turnings that lead unto blind by-ways.
1603. Knolles, Hist. Turks (1621), 316. He … went by certaine blind wayes through the mountains and woods.
1634. Milton, Comus, 181. In the blind mazes of this tangled wood.
1719. De Foe, Crusoe (1858), 357. Inaccessible, except by such windings, and blind ways, as they themselves only who made them could find.
1870. Morris, Earthly Par., II. III. 76. Through blind ways of the wood he went.
9. Covered or concealed from sight.
1513. Douglas, Æneis, III. x. 100. Blynd rolkis of Libie.
1555. Eden, Decades W. Ind., I. I. (Arb.), 66. The keele … ranne vpon a blynde rocke couered with water.
1614. Markham, Cheap Husb., To Rdr. By evry high-way side or blinde ditch.
1650. R. Stapylton, Strada’s Low-C. Warres, 47. The place was full of blind Pits covered over with Rubbish.
1796. Morse, Amer. Geog., II. 631. Surrounded with blind rocks, sunk a few feet below the water.
1882. Standard, 16 Nov., 3/5. The ditches, overgrown with long grass and trailing brambles, were very ‘blind.’
10. Having no openings or passages for light.
a. Arch. Of walls, etc.: Without windows or openings; (a window or door) walled up.
1603. Knolles, Hist. Turks (1621), 516. The Cloister … shut in on everie side with high and blind wals.
1736. Carte, Ormonde, I. 273. Some of the inhabitants who let the rebels into the place through an old blind door that was broke open for them.
1820. L. Hunt, Indicator, No. 38 (1822), I. 297. This tower … seemed as blind as it was strong.
1870. F. Wilson, Ch. Lindisf., 41. The north walls of both nave and vestry were blind.
1874. Parker, Illustr. Goth. Archit., I. iii. 61. In … Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford … the clerestory window has a smaller blind arch on each side of it.
b. Of hedges and the like: Too thick or leafy to be seen through.
1718. Pope, Iliad, XI. 595. Some huntsman … From the blind thicket wounds a stately deer.
1864. [H. W. Wheelwright], Spring Lapl., 54. The hedges were getting too blind for hunting.
11. Closed at one end. So blind alley in its present sense: for early use see 8.
[1662. Dryden, Wild Gall., II. i. (1725), 113. He must meet me in a blind Alley.]
1668. Culpepper & Cole, Barthol. Anat., i. 303. Yet could I not … find the Anastomoses of Vena Cava and Vena Porta open, but all blind.
1678. Salmon, New Lond. Dispens., 818. They are of use in the blind Alembick.
1724. Swift, Irish Manuf., Wks. 1755, V. II. 7. A hedge-press in some blind-alley about Little-Britain.
1847–9. Todd, Cycl. Anat. & Phys., IV. 736. The cæcum towards its blind termination.
1878. Jefferies, Gamekpr. at H., 116. Cross-passages, ‘blind’ holes and ‘pop’ holes.
b. Blind holes in Mechanics: holes not coincident in plates to be riveted together.
1869. Sir E. Reed, Shipbuild., x. 194. The greater number of what are termed blind, or half-blind, holes are found in the edges.
12. Of plants: Without buds or eyes, or without a terminal flower. Blind bud, one that bears no bloom or fruit, an abortive bud.
1884. J. E. Taylor, Sagac. & Mor. Plants, 70. Should such flowers fail to be crossed, no fruit is borne, and the flowers are then blind.
Mod. These asters have turned out ‘blind.’
13. Blind story, one without point.
1699. Bentley, Phal., Pref. 64. He insinuates a blind Story about something and somebody.
1762–71. H. Walpole, Vertue’s Anecd. Paint. (1786), II. 75. This story which in truth is but a blind one.
† 14. transf. from sight to sound. Obs.
1398. Trevisa, Barth. De P. R., XIX. cxxxi. (1495), 942. The blynde voyc stynteth soone · and is stuffyd and dureth not longe: as the sowne of erthen vessell.
IV. Combinations.
15. General, as blind-born, -hearted; blind-drunk (Sc. blin’-fou), so intoxicated as to see no better than a blind man.
c. 975. Rushw. Gosp., John ix. 32. Eʓo ðæs blinda-borones.
a. 1225. Ancr. R., 178. Þu ert blind iheorted, & ne isihst nout hwu þu ert poure & naked of holinesse.
a. 1300. Cursor M., 13601. Ȝe sai þat blind-born man was he.
1720. Welton, Suffer. Son of God, II. xxii. 610. The poor, Blind-Born Man.
16. Special comb., as blind area (Arch.), a clear space around the basement wall of a house; blind-axle, one that turns but does not move any other part of the mechanism, = dead-axle; blind-ball, the Puff-ball (Lycoperdon bovista), a fungus containing dust which is supposed to blind the eyes; blind-beetle, a popular name for beetles which are apt to fly against people, esp. by night; hence blind-beetledness; also, a small beetle found in rice; blind-blocking, -tooling (Bookbinding), ornamental impressions on book-covers produced by heated blocks, or tools, without gold-leaf; blind-fish, the Amblyopsis spelæus, a fish without eyes found in the Mammoth Cave of Kentucky; blind-gallery (see BLIND a. 10); blind-harry (Sc.), blind-man’s-buff; blind-hazard, a game at cards; blind-hob, some game unknown; blind-hookey, a game at cards; blind-level (see quot.); † blind-mouse, the mole; also the water shrew-mouse; blind-shaft, a winze; blind-shell (Artillery), a shell containing no powder, also one that fails to explode when fired; blind-spot, the spot on the retina that is insensible to light; blind-story (Arch.), a triforium or series of arches below the clerestory of a cathedral, admitting no light; blind tooling = blind-blocking; blind-window, ? a window that admits no light; an arch of the blind-story. Also BLIND-COAL, -GUT, -HEAD, -NETTLE, -WORM, q.v.
1649. Lightfoot, Battle w. Wasp’s N. (1825), 389. If you must shame any body for *blind beetledness.
1880. Günther, Fishes, 618. The famous *Blind Fish of the Mammoth Cave in Kentucky … is destitute of external eyes.
1816. Singer, Hist. Cards, 263. We are informed the modern name of this game [Bankrout] is *Blind Hazard.
a. 1845. Mrs. Bray, Warleigh, xvii. (1884), 135. In the servants’ hall, playing at *blind hob and hot cockles.
1862. Thackeray, Philip, II. 100. Victimized by his own uncle … at a game called *‘blind hookey.’
1881. Raymond, Mining Gloss., *Blind level, 1. A level not yet connected with other workings. 2. A level for drainage, having a shaft at either end, and acting as an inverted siphon.
1607. Topsell, Four-f. Beasts, 563. It hunteth Moles or *blinde Mice.
1770. Pennant, Zool., IV. 83. It [the water shrewmouse] is called, from the smallness of its eyes, the *blind mouse.
1864. Daily Tel., 4 May, 5/5. The day was closed with … *blind shells for the purpose of completing the tables of ranges.
1872. Huxley, Phys., ix. 219. So long as the image … rests upon the entrance of the optic nerve, it is not perceived, and hence this region of the retina is called the *blind spot.
c. 1520. Myln, Vitæ Dunkeld. Episcop., in Parker, Gloss. Goth. Arch., I. 57. Construxit usque secundos arcus, vulgariter le *blyndstorys.
1848. Rickman, Goth. Archit., Introd. 18. There is a passage in the thickness of the wall of the clerestory as well as in the triforium or *blind-story.
1847. L. Hunt, Men, Women, & Bks., II. vi. 78. The charms of vellums, tall copies, and *blind tooling.
1506. Bury Wills (1850), 107. I byqueth toward the makyng of ij *blynde wyndowes in the seid monasterij … xli.
