dazzle
Contents
English[edit]
Pronunciation[edit]
Etymology[edit]
daze + -le, a frequentative form.
Verb[edit]
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.
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Dazzled by the headlights of the lorry, the deer stopped in the middle of the street.
- Milton
- Those heavenly shapes / Will dazzle now the earthly, with their blaze / Insufferably bright.
- Sir H. Taylor
- An unreflected light did never yet / Dazzle the vision feminine.
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- (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.
- Francis Bacon
- An overlight maketh the eyes dazzle.
- Dryden
- I dare not trust these eyes; / They dance in mists, and dazzle with surprise.
- Francis Bacon
Derived terms[edit]
Translations[edit]
confuse the sight
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figuratively
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Noun[edit]
dazzle (plural dazzles)
- A light of dazzling brilliancy.
- (figuratively) 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 […]
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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, […]
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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):
Synonyms[edit]
Translations[edit]
a very bright light
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