Forms: 6–7 blurre, 7– blurr, blur. [Blur sb. and vb. appear about the middle of the 16th c.: their mutual relation is doubtful, and the origin of both unknown: they have been conjecturally viewed as a variant of BLEAR, and may perhaps be onomatopœic, combining the effect of blear and blot. The mod.Sc. is blore.]
1. A smear which partially obscures, made with ink or other coloring matter, or by brushing the surface of writing while still wet.
1601. Holland, Pliny, II. 306. With it a man may wash away any blots or blurs of ink.
1640. Quarles, Enchirid., III. xiii. He that clenses a blot with blotted fingers makes a greater blurre.
1665. Pepys, Diary (1879), III. 151. I minded it so little as to sleep in the middle of my letter to him, and committed forty blotts and blurrs.
1705. in Perry, Hist. Coll. Ancr. Col. Ch., I. 178. The Blots, Blurs, and Defacements of many of the Pages.
1871. Browning, Pr. Hohenst., 392. Why keep each fool’s bequeathment, scratch and blurr Which overscrawl and underscore the piece?
2. fig. A stain which bedims moral or ideal purity, a blemish; an aspersion on character.
1548. Udall, etc., Erasm. Par. Luke xviii. 144. Sette a great blurre on myne honestie.
1593. Shaks., Lucr., 222. This blur to youth.
1641. Milton, Ch. Discip., I. Wks. (1851), 21. These blurs are too apparent in his life.
1866. Cornh. Mag., May, 557. The place from a distance, compared with the surrounding country, was a blur and a blemish as it were.
1883. Miss F. P. Cobbe, in Contemp. Rev., June, 784. Many a blur of human error has been mistaken for a feature of the Divine countenance.
3. An effect like that of blurred writing or painting; an indistinct blurred appearance; indistinctness, confused dimness.
1860. Emerson, Cond. Life (1868), 281. The fine star-dust and nebulous blur of Orion.
1870. Lowell, Study Wind., 39. The vast blur of a north-northeast snow-storm.
1873. Browning, Red Cott. Nt.-cap, 878. The face, to me One blurr of blank.
