blindness

American  

[blahynd-nis] / ˈblaɪnd nɪs /

noun

blindnesses plural

1. the inability to see; the condition of having severely impaired or absolutely no sense of sight.

   Patients are first asked if their blindness is congenital or the result of injury or disease.

2. an unwillingness or inability to perceive or understand; lack of judgment; ignorance.

   Your blindness to this behavior has allowed his anxiety to worsen.

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blindness Scientific  

/ blīnd′nĭs /

1. A lack or impairment of vision in which maximal visual acuity after correction by refractive lenses is one-tenth normal vision or less in the better eye. Blindness can be genetic but is usually acquired as a result of injury, cataracts, or diseases such as glaucoma or diabetes. In Asia and Africa, trachoma is a common infectious cause of blindness.

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Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

• blindnesses
  plural

Etymology

Origin of blindness

First recorded before 1000; blind ( def. ) + -ness ( def. )

Example Sentences

This can cause sudden partial or complete blindness in one or both eyes.

From Science Daily • May 23, 2026

Tatel is legally blind and seemingly feared that the justice would act with factual blindness.

From Slate • May 7, 2026

The effort to be identity-blind, he writes, can “cause a certain blindness: not seeing the conditions of life that people deal with because they have an identity.”

From The Wall Street Journal • Mar. 2, 2026

One woman, who has face blindness, has difficulty watching films with more than four characters, but her companion helped to explain who is who when she got confused.

From BBC • Feb. 13, 2026

It is unclear whether the blindness proceeded from the invasion of the disease in the ocular area or from an internal nervous disorganization attendant upon her distemper.

From "The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation, Volume I: The Pox Party" by M.T. Anderson

Related Words

• defect
• myopia