blindness

[ blahynd-nis ]

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

/ 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.

Word History and Origins

Origin of blindness¹

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

Example Sentences

One, a treatment for blindness, in which viruses carry a new gene to the retina, costs $425,000 per eye.

From MIT Technology Review

Stock buyers were essentially flying blind while buying into companies, which some investors were more than willing to do, but that blindness limited the market demand for secondary shares significantly.

From TechCrunch

Many of the concerning products are labeled as containing safe alcohols but actually contained methanol, an extremely poisonous form of alcohol associated with incorrectly distilled liquors that can cause blindness and even death.

From Ars Technica

Diabetes is the leading cause of blindness, leading cause of non-trauma limb amputation, leading cause of kidney failure.

From Eater

He wrote, “Not only are we blind to the obvious, but we are blind to our blindness.”

From Freakonomics

A new Australian study, too, has consumers worried that Viagra could cause blindness and other vision problems.

From The Daily Beast

They had overcome everything from religious persecution to blindness to crushing family responsibilities.

From The Daily Beast

Throughout True Detective, Pizzolatto has linked blindness—an unseeing state—to the victims of the Carcosa cult.

From The Daily Beast

Bacterial pathogens include gonorrhea (yes) which can cause blindness in a matter of hours, and chlamydia.

From The Daily Beast

Part of the explanation for this dismal record of non-rescue is our capacity for willed blindness.

From The Daily Beast

From that region they issue to inflict diseases, especially blindness and deafness.

From Project Gutenberg

We may apply to it with advantage the spectacles of social reform, but what the socialist offers us is total blindness.

From Project Gutenberg

But that "blindness to the future kindly given," allows them a few hours of sad enjoyment.

From Project Gutenberg

In the latter part of the same year he operated successfully upon Mme. Mignon for blindness.

From Project Gutenberg

In this stage iritis is liable to occur, and if it is not properly diagnosed and treated it will result in blindness.

From Project Gutenberg

Related Words

• defect
• myopia