a. [f. blear eye + -ED.]
1. lit. Having blear eyes.
1382. Wyclif, Lev. xxi. 20. If crokid-rigge or bleereyed [1388 blereiȝed].
1393. Langl., P. Pl., C. XX. 306. Þorw smoke and smorþre … Til he be bler-eyed oþer blynde.
1526. Pilgr. Perf. (W. de W., 1531), 153 b. Lya was blere-eyed, & myght not se clerely.
1562. Turner, Herbal, II. 133. The iuice [of Aygrene] … is good for them that are blare eyed.
1642. T. Taylor, God’s Judgem., I. I. ii. 3. Those who … being bleare eyed and tender sighted are rather dazled and dimmed by the Sunnes beames.
1787. Wolcott (P. Pindar), Wks., 1812, I. 458. The wrinkled blear-eyed, good old Granny.
2. fig. Having the mental vision dimmed; dull of perception, short-sighted.
1561. T. Norton, Calvin’s Inst., III. xvii. (1634), 395. The judgement of God farre surmounteth the bleare-eyed sight of men.
1581. J. Bell, Haddon’s Answ. Osor., 221. Their bleare eyed dulnes.
1663. J. Spencer, Prodigies (1665), 340. Men quickly hated this blear-ey’d Religion.
Hence Blear-eyedness.
c. 1440. Promp. Parv., 39. Blerydnesse [1499 blere iyednesse], lippitudo.
1611. Cotgr., Chacie, bleare-eyednesse; a running, or waterishnesse of the eyes.
1653. Gauden, Hierasp., 96. That darkness and bleareyedness, which prejudice and perverseness carry with them.
1877. Wraxell, trans. V. Hugo’s Les Misérables, I. Contemporary admiration is blear-eyedness.
