Blear

/blɪə/ · adjective

Meaning

(of eyes or vision) Dim; unclear from water or rheum..

Definitions by Sense

1. (of eyes or vision) Dim; unclear from water or rheum.
2. Causing or caused by dimness of sight.
3. (intransitive) To be blear; to have blear eyes; to look or gaze with blear eyes.
4. (transitive) To make (usually the eyes or eyesight) blurred or dim.
5. (transitive, of an image) To blur, make blurry.
6. Alternative form of blare

Example Sentences

A Promontory Wen, with grieſly grace, Stood high, upon the Handle of his Face: His blear Eyes ran in gutters to his Chin: His Beard was stubble, and his Cheeks were thin.

The Devil, now disguised as a half-wit peasant to Lars-Goren’s left, stood grinning, his blear eyes glittering.

Thus I hurle My dazling spells into the ſpungie aire Of power to cheate the eye with bleare illuſion, And give it falſe preſentments, […]

18th c., attributed to Jonathan Swift, “The Story of Orpheus, Burlesqued,” in Walter Scott (ed.), The Works of Jonathan Swift, Boston: Houghton, Mifflin & Co., 2nd edition, 1883, Volume 10, p. 403, Orpheus, a one-eyed blearing Thracian, The crowder of that barb’rous nation, Was ballad-singer by vocation;

1917, Madge Morris, The “Red Wind Blows” in The Lure of the Desert Land and Other Poems, San Francisco: Har Wagner, p. 83, Let loose thy snow-winged dove, to rise And fly across the seething blood-mad world. To flutter over fields where that dread Silence is! To light on upturned faces blearing at the skies And curiously peck at dead men’s eyes.

The street-lamps blearing thro’ the rainy rout, Each like a winking, sickly evil-eye.

your ſelf you cannot ſo diſguiſe:

Here’s Lucentio, right ſonne to the right Vincentio, That haue by marriage made thy daughter mine, While counterfeit ſuppoſes bleer’d thine eine.

Synonyms for blear

Antonyms for blear

Related Words

Word Forms

• more blear
• most blear
• bleer
• blears
• blearing
• bleared

Usage Notes

Choose a synonym only when it preserves the intended meaning, tone, and grammar of the full sentence.

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