turn a blind eye to

1. Deliberately overlook, ignore, as in She decided to turn a blind eye to her roommate's goings-on. This expression is believed to come from the siege of Copenhagen (1801), in which Lord Horatio Nelson, second in command of the English fleet, was ordered to withdraw but pretended not to see the flagship's signals to do so by putting his glass to the eye that had been blinded in an earlier battle. His attack led to a major victory. Also see turn a deaf ear.

Example Sentences

But the one certainty it hints at is that the Nile Jarvises among us will continue to get away with murder, and worse, because it’s safer to turn a blind eye to those crimes than to insist the perpetrators be held responsible, regardless of how wealthy they are.

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The parents’ attorney, Robert Glassman, said in a statement that camps have a responsibility to assess the safety of places where kids play, and public entities should not turn a blind eye to obviously dangerous conditions.

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Sotomayor asked her colleagues and the American public not to turn a blind eye to the harsh realities that haunt the death penalty system in the United States.

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He added that he believed the government would not "turn a blind eye to the current illegal and unconstitutional situation".

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And would Uefa turn a blind eye to a stadium return after such a long jaunt?

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