color blindness
- 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. 2018
Word Origin and History for colorblindness
color blindness
1844, replacing Daltonism (after English chemist John Dalton, 1766-1844, who published a description of it in 1794); in figurative use, with reference to race or ethnicity, attested from 1866, American English. Related: color blind (adj.).
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Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper
color blindness
- Deficiency of color perception, whether hereditary or acquired, partial or complete.
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The American Heritage® Stedman's Medical Dictionary
Copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company.
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).
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Note
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.