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close one's eyes to

Idioms

Also, shut one eyes to. Deliberately ignore, refuse to notice. For example, Jill closed her eyes to the danger and pushed off downhill, or The professor shut her eyes to students who read a book during her lecture. [Early 1700s] For a synonym see turn a blind eye.

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

We can show this to be a fact any day with the microscope, and it is little use to close one's eyes to "immoral" facts of this kind.

From The Evolution of Man — Volume 1 by Haeckel, Ernst Heinrich Philipp August

One must close one’s eyes to that; there is no moral principle without its own inconvenience.

From Diderot and the Encyclopædists Volume II. by Morley, John

One does not wish to be pessimistic, but it is foolish to close one's eyes to bare fact.

From Across China on Foot by Dingle, Edwin John

The Commonwealth seemed to sink deeper each day, and it was difficult to close one's eyes to the terrible truth that for it there was no salvation.

From The Deluge, Vol. I. (of 2) An Historical Novel of Poland, Sweden, and Russia. by Sienkiewicz, Henryk

Only this may be said: it is impos- sible, in view of the procession of starved and frustrated lives which is continuously filing past, to close one's eyes to the urgency of this woman's problem.

From The Unexpurgated Case Against Woman Suffrage by Wright, Almroth

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023