[See prec.]
1. trans. To obscure or sully (what has been fair) by smearing with ink or other coloring liquid.
1592. Lyly, Midas, IV. ii. To blurre his diademe with blood.
1612. R. Carpenter, Soules Sent., 54. His … black booke, blurde and blotted with the register of sin.
1650. Fuller, Pisgah, IV. ii. 20. A full paper blurred over with falsehoods.
1884. Browning, Ferishtah, 117. Blacks blur thy white?
b. intr. To make blurs in writing.
1622. Mabbe, trans. Aleman’s Guzman d’Alf., II. 134. My pen did so blur, that I did despaire, to come off cleanly with it.
1689. Evelyn, Mem. (1857), III. 314. I see how I have blurred: but tis not worth the writing fairer.
1878. Browning, Poets Croisic, xxxvii. Over the neat crowquill calligraph His pen goes blotting, blurring.
2. fig. To stain, sully, blot or blemish the purity, beauty or truth of (anything); to disfigure, befoul, defile, asperse.
1593. Shaks., 2 Hen. VI., IV. i. 39. Neuer yet did base dishonour blurre our name, But with our sword we wip’d away the blot. Ibid. (1602), Ham., III. iv. 41. Such an Act That blurres the grace and blush of Modestie.
1663. Butler, Hud., I. iii. 876. Sarcasms may eclipse thine own But cannot blur my lost renown.
1674. Flatman, To Orinda, 3. A weeping evening blurs a smiling day.
1794. Sullivan, View Nat., V. 28. Irish history, blurred … with extravagancy and fable.
1825. Coleridge, Lett., Convers., etc. II. 237. The human face divine is blurred and transfigured by being made the impress of the mean and selfish.
1885. W. C. Smith, Kildrostan, 74. To blur a father’s memory.
3. To blur out: to efface (writing, etc.) by blurring it. To blur over: to put out of sight, or obscure by a blur. Mostly fig.
1581. J. Bell, Haddon’s Answ. Osor., 13. If the lively authoritie of the holy scriptures have so utterly quasshed and blurred out this bald ceremonie.
1621. Quarles, Esther (1638), 123. And from remembrance blurre his Generation.
1642. Milton, Apol. Smect., Wks. 1738, I. 121. To blur over, rather than to mention that public triumph.
1663. Sir G. Mackenzie, Relig. Stoic, vii. (1685), 54. Blur the names … out of the Book of Life.
1690. Locke, Hum. Und., I. iii. (1695), 25. Concerning innate Principles, I desire these Men to say, whether they can, or cannot … be blurr’d and blotted out.
1863. Alcock, Capit. Tycoon, I. 159. Such total absence of all external differences between one day and another had a constant tendency to blur out distinctions.
4. To make indistinct and dim, as writing is by being blurred. Also fig.
1611. Shaks., Cymb., IV. ii. 104. Time hath nothing blurr’d those lines of Fauour Which then he wore.
1681. Ess. Peace & Truth Ch., 2. The Blurring these Impressions.
1859. Tennyson, Guinevere, 5. One low light … Blurr’d by the creeping mist.
1871. Rossetti, Stream’s Secr., viii. Thine eddy’s rippling race Would blur the perfect image of his face.
5. transf. To dim (the sight or other senses, the perception, or judgment), so that they no longer receive or form distinct impressions.
c. 1620. Z. Boyd, Zion’s Flowers (1855), 112. Feare … blurres your senses.
1791. Cowper, Iliad, XX. 392. With shadows dim he blurr’d the sight Of Peleus’ son.
1871. Rossetti, Staff & Scrip, xxvii. Our sense is blurr’d With all the chants gone by.
1878. Morley, Crit. Misc., Ser. I. 264. Social equity in which charity is not allowed to blur judgment.
6. Comb., as † blur-paper, a writer who merely blurs paper; a scribbler.
1603. Florio, Montaigne, II. xxxii. (1632), 404. Scriblers and blur-papers which now adayes stuffe Stationers shops.
¶ Cf. BLARE, BLORE v.
1611. Cotgr., Grailler, to winde a Horne hollowly; to blurre a Trumpet.
