blindness

American  

[blahynd-nis] / ˈblaɪnd nɪs /

noun

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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Etymology

Origin of blindness

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

Example Sentences

She and Basil Petrou developed a financial instrument designed to attract investors to the kind of promising, early-stage medical research on blindness that traditionally fails to gather enough funding to proceed to FDA trials.

From The Wall Street Journal • Mar. 12, 2026

The answer isn’t ideological blindness so much as methodological constraint.

From Barron's • Feb. 2, 2026

The inquiry's senior counsel went on to say that managers at the health board had failed to ask questions about the hospital building and had instead showed a "wilful blindness".

From BBC • Jan. 23, 2026

A new brain implant could significantly reshape how people interact with computers while offering new treatment possibilities for conditions such as epilepsy, spinal cord injury, ALS, stroke, and blindness.

From Science Daily • Dec. 9, 2025

In her blindness and old age, old Grandma stubbornly ignored her and heard only what she wanted to hear.

From "Ceremony:" by Leslie Marmon Silko

Related Words

• defect
• myopia