blear-eyed, a.
(ˈblɪərˈaɪd)
[f. blear eye + -ed.]
1. lit. Having blear eyes.
| 1382 Wyclif Lev. xxi. 20 If crokid-rigge or bleereyed [1388 blereiȝed]. 1393 Langl. P. Pl. C. xx. 306 Þorw smoke and smorþre..Til he be bler-eyed oþer blynde. 1526 Pilgr. Perf. (W. de W. 1531) 153 b, Lya was blere-eyed, & myght not se clerely. 1562 Turner Herbal ii. 133 The iuice [of Aygrene]..is good for them that are blare eyed. 1642 T. Taylor God's Judgem. i. i. ii. 3 Those who..being bleare eyed and tender sighted are rather dazled and dimmed by the Sunnes beames. 1787 Wolcott (P. Pindar) Wks. 1812 I. 458 The wrinkled blear-eyed, good old Granny. 1798 [see collier-woman s.v. collier III]. 1935 W. S. Maugham Don Fernando xi. 232 You have painted me ugly and blear-eyed. |
2. fig. Having the mental vision dimmed; dull of perception, short-sighted.
| 1561 T. Norton Calvin's Inst. iii. xvii. (1634) 395 The judgement of God farre surmounteth the bleare-eyed sight of men. 1581 J. Bell Haddon's Answ. Osor. 221 Their bleare eyed dulnes. 1663 J. Spencer Prodigies (1665) 340 Men quickly hated this blear-ey'd Religion. 1687 Dryden Hind & Panther ii. 61 That ev'n the blear⁓ey'd sects may find her out. 1927 Yeats October Blast 15 Nor blear-eyed wisdom out of midnight oil. |
Hence blear-ˈeyedness.
| c 1440 Promp. Parv. 39 Blerydnesse [1499 blere iyednesse], lippitudo. 1611 Cotgr., Chacie, bleare-eyednesse; a running, or waterishnesse of the eyes. 1653 Gauden Hierasp. 96 That darkness and bleareyednesse, which prejudice and perverseness carry with them. 1877 F. C. L. Wraxall V. Hugo's Miserables i. Contemporary admiration is blear-eyedness. |