color blindness
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noun
inability to distinguish one or several chromatic colors, independent of the capacity for distinguishing light and shade.
complete inability to distinguish colors of the spectrum, with all objects appearing as shades of gray, black, and white, varying only as to lightness and darkness; achromatopsia.
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Origin of color blindness
First recorded in 1835–45
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Cultural definitions for color blindness
colorblindness
A defect in perception of colors, caused by a deficiency of certain specialized cells in the retina that are sensitive to different colors. The condition may be partial (as in “red-green colorblindness,” in which a person cannot distinguish red from green), or complete (in which the person sees all colors as gray).
notes for colorblindness
By extension, the law is said to be colorblind in its judgments, which are supposed to ignore a defendant's race.
The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition
Copyright © 2005 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.