Wiktionary

dazzle

English

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Etymology

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From daze +‎ -le, a frequentative form.

Pronunciation

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Verb

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dazzle (third-person singular simple present dazzles, present participle dazzling, simple past and past participle dazzled)

  1. (transitive) To confuse or overpower the sight of (someone or something, such as a sensor) by means of excessive brightness.
    Hypernym: blind
    Coordinate terms: daze, disorient
    Dazzled by the headlights of the lorry, the deer stopped in the middle of the street.
    Antidrone lasers can burn or dazzle a drone's sensors.
    • 1667, John Milton, “Book IX”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker […]; [a]nd by Robert Boulter […]; [a]nd Matthias Walker, […], →OCLC; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: […], London: Basil Montagu Pickering […], 1873, →OCLC:
      Those heavenly shapes / Will dazzle now the earthly, with their blaze / Insufferably bright.
    • 1834, Henry Taylor, Philip van Artevelde‎[1], volume 1, page 45:
      An unreflected light did never yet / Dazzle the vision feminine.
  2. (transitive, figuratively) To render incapable of thinking clearly; to overwhelm with showiness or brilliance.
    Synonyms: impress, overpower
    The delegates were dazzled by the originality of his arguments.
  3. (intransitive) To be overpowered by light; to be confused by excess of brightness.
    • 1626, Francis Bacon, Sylva Sylvarum: or, A Natural History in Ten Centuries‎[2]:
      For we see, that an over-light maketh the Eyes dazel, insomuch as perpetual looking against the Sun, would cause blindness.
    • 1675, John Dryden, Aureng-zebe: A Tragedy‎[3]:
      […] I dare not trust these Eyes; / They Dance in Mists, and dazle with surprize.

Derived terms

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Translations

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Noun

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dazzle (countable and uncountable, plural dazzles)

  1. A light of dazzling brilliancy.
  2. (figurative) Showy brilliance that may stop a person from thinking clearly.
  3. (uncommon) A herd of zebra.
    • 1958, Laurens Van der Post, The lost world of the Kalahari: with the great and the little memory (1998 David Coulson edition):
      We were trying to stalk a dazzle of zebra which flashed in and out of a long strip of green and yellow fever trees, with an ostrich, its feathers flared like a ballet skirt around its dancing legs, on their flank, when suddenly […]
    • 2009, Darren Paul Shearer, In You God Trusts, page 176:
      Zebras move in herds which are known as "dazzles." When a lion approaches a dazzle of zebras during its hunt, […]
    • 2010, Douglas Rogers, The Last Resort: A Memoir of Mischief and Mayhem on a Family Farm in Africa, page 22:
      I reached the lodge as a dazzle of zebras trotted across the dirt road into thorny scrub by the game fence, and a lone kudu gazed up at me from the short grass near the swimming pool.
  4. (uncountable) Dazzle camouflage.

Synonyms

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Derived terms

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Translations

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See also

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