blear

American  

[bleer] / blɪər /

verb (used with object)

1. to make dim, as with tears or inflammation.

   a biting wind that bleared the vision.

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adjective

1. (of the eyes) dim from tears.

2. dim; indistinct.

noun

1. a blur; cloudiness; dimness.

   She was concerned about the recent blear in her vision.

blear British  

/ blɪə /

verb

1. (tr) to make (eyes or sight) dim with or as if with tears; blur

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adjective

1. a less common word for bleary

Other Word Forms

• blearedness noun

Etymology

Origin of blear

1250–1300; Middle English bleri, blere (v.), blere (adj.) < ?

Example Sentences

The camera seems to eye everything with a cavalier detachment, and the sepia film gives the illusion that everything is seen through a blear of centuries.

From Time Magazine Archive

Cleavon Little and Judd Hirsch totter convincingly as men whose eyes are blear with glaucoma and cataracts and whose hips are fragile, "like a teacup."

From Time Magazine Archive

Or that she mothers the future, herself the future to which you begin to resign yourself as your own eyes blear a bit and breaks in the bones take eternity to heal.

From Time Magazine Archive

The jolt of the work was its off-register blear, its bright-crude colors; but more so, his icy message that the whole world was product.

From Time Magazine Archive

They blear into a nightmare, the one scarcely distinguishable from the other.

From "Black Like Me" by John Howard Griffin