sight unseen

Idioms  

1. Without having viewed the object in question, as in He bought the horse sight unseen. This seeming oxymoron—how can a sight, which means something seen, be not seen?—dates from the late 1800s.

---

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

sight unseen

With fond memories of living in the condo complex in his 20s, the 43-year-old public employee decided to buy a two-bedroom unit, sight unseen, for $260,000 in July 2024.

From MarketWatch ● Sep. 18, 2026

When a three-bedroom, roughly 2,000-square-foot home was listed, he made an offer sight unseen.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 13, 2026

“I called and said, ‘I have experience at Macy’s doing Christmas,’ and they literally gave me the job sight unseen over the phone because experience at Macy’s had so much clout,” he says.

From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 21, 2025

“In cases where people buy properties sight unseen, it would be a stronger case that they made that contract under misleading pretenses and for it to be null and void,” Leben said.

From Slate ● Oct. 17, 2025

So I fall back on the support networks of my real-life social class, call the dermatologist I know in Key West, and bludgeon him into prescribing something sight unseen.

From "Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America" by Barbara Ehrenreich