dazzle
English
Etymology
daze + -le, a frequentative form.
Pronunciation
Verb
dazzle (third-person singular simple present dazzles, present participle dazzling, simple past and past participle dazzled)
- (transitive) To confuse the sight of by means of excessive brightness.
- Dazzled by the headlights of the lorry, the deer stopped in the middle of the street.
- 1667, John Milton, “Book IX”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker […]; [a]nd by Robert Boulter […]; [a]nd Matthias Walker, […], →OCLC:
- Those heavenly shapes / Will dazzle now the earthly, with their blaze / Insufferably bright.
- 1834, Henry Taylor, Philip van Artevelde[1], volume 1, page 45:
- An unreflected light did never yet / Dazzle the vision feminine.
- (transitive, figuratively) To render incapable of thinking clearly; to overwhelm with showiness or brilliance.
- (intransitive) To be overpowered by light; to be confused by excess of brightness.
- 1626, Francis Bacon, Sylva Sylvarum: or, A Natural History in Ten Centuries[2]:
- For we see, that an over-light maketh the Eyes dazel, insomuch as perpetual looking against the Sun, would cause blindness.
- 1675, John Dryden, Aureng-zebe: A Tragedy[3]:
- […] I dare not trust these Eyes; / They Dance in Mists, and dazle with surprize.
Derived terms
Translations
confuse the sight
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figuratively
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Noun
dazzle (countable and uncountable, plural dazzles)
- A light of dazzling brilliancy.
- (figurative) Showy brilliance that may stop a person from thinking clearly.
- (uncommon) A herd of zebra.
- 1958, Laurens Van der Post, The lost world of the Kalahari: with the great and the little memory (1998 David Coulson edition):
- We were trying to stalk a dazzle of zebra which flashed in and out of a long strip of green and yellow fever trees, with an ostrich, its feathers flared like a ballet skirt around its dancing legs, on their flank, when suddenly […]
- 2009, Darren Paul Shearer, In You God Trusts, page 176:
- Zebras move in herds which are known as "dazzles." When a lion approaches a dazzle of zebras during its hunt, […]
- 2010, Douglas Rogers, The Last Resort: A Memoir of Mischief and Mayhem on a Family Farm in Africa, page 22:
- I reached the lodge as a dazzle of zebras trotted across the dirt road into thorny scrub by the game fence, and a lone kudu gazed up at me from the short grass near the swimming pool.
- 1958, Laurens Van der Post, The lost world of the Kalahari: with the great and the little memory (1998 David Coulson edition):
- (uncountable) Dazzle camouflage.
Synonyms
Translations
a very bright light
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Categories:
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- Rhymes:English/æzəl
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