a.
1. Having ‘long sight’ (see LONG a. 18); capable of distinguishing objects clearly at a distance but not close at hand; hypermetropic.
c. 1790. Imison, Sch. Art, I. 208. The short-sighted … can distinguish much smaller objects than long-sighted people.
1829. Nat. Philos., Optics, xvii. 46 (U. K. S.). When the eye loses the power of accommodating itself to near objects, the person is said to be longsighted.
1833. N. Arnott, Physics (ed. 5), II. 228. After middle age, most persons become more or less long-sighted.
1869. H. Ussher, in Eng. Mech., 10 Dec., 295/2. He is long-sighted looking forward and short-sighted looking upward.
2. fig. Able to see far ahead; having great foresight; far-seeing.
1791. Gibbon, Autobiog. (1896), 341, note. The judicious lines in which Pope answers the objection of his long-sighted friend.
1855. Grote, Greece, II. xcv. XII. 443. Throughout the whole career of Demosthenes … we trace the same combination of earnest patriotism with wise and long-sighted policy.
1901. Speaker, 3 Nov., 204/2. Such a city would have been distinguished for long-sighted prudence.
Hence Longsightedness.
1794. G. Adams, Nat. & Exp. Philos., II. xvii. 295. Long-sightedness may be acquired: for … those that are habituated to look at remote objects, are generally long-sighted.
1832. Nat. Philos., Acc. Newt. Opt., i. 3 (U. K. S.). He showed that those defects which are called long-sightedness, and short-sightedness, proceeded from too small or too great a refracting power in the eye.
1864. Pusey, Lect. Daniel, vii. 423. To discern their [events] purport and tendencies from the first, is the province of human long-sightedness.
