nearsighted
AmericanOther Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of nearsighted
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How does nearsighted compare to similar and commonly confused words? Explore the most common comparisons:
Explanation
If you're nearsighted, you can't read distant signs or maybe even distinguish between different people from far away. Nearsighted people need to wear glasses, especially when they're driving. When someone is "farsighted," they see far-off objects well, but have trouble with close-up things like the print in a book or newspaper. In contrast, being nearsighted means you can read a magazine with no problem, but you need contacts or glasses in order to bring distant objects into focus. A more formal word for nearsighted is myopic.
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.
Time indoors looking at screens can cause eyeballs to elongate, leaving kids nearsighted for life.
From The Wall Street Journal • Dec. 29, 2025
Modern living may be contributing to an epidemic of nearsighted vision and related blindness.
From Science Daily • Dec. 4, 2023
“Kids are becoming nearsighted at rates that are faster than we’ve ever seen before,” says Nick Onken, an optometrist at the University of Alabama, Birmingham.
From National Geographic • Nov. 1, 2023
He said, "You're extremely nearsighted and that means you are at more risk of having a detached retina, and if that happens, we want to catch it right away because it can affect your vision."
From Salon • May 4, 2023
I’ve become very nearsighted and should have had glasses ages ago.
From "The Diary of a Young Girl" by Anne Frank
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
