Forms: 3–6 visioun, 4 -iun, -iowne, -eoun, vysyoun, 5 vysyoune, 5–6 Sc. wisioun; 4–5 vysione, vysyon, 5 vyssyon, 5–6 vysion; 4– vision (5 uision, visionne), 4–6 visyon (6 Sc. vesyne). [a. AF. visiun, visioun, OF. vision (= Sp. vision, It. visione), or ad. L. vīsiōn-, vīsio sight, seeing, thing seen, f. vīs-, ppl. stem of vidēre to see.]
1. Something that is apparently seen otherwise than by ordinary sight; esp. an appearance of a prophetic or mystical character, or having the nature of a revelation, supernaturally presented to the mind either in sleep or in an abnormal state. Beatific vision: see BEATIFIC a. b.
In early texts a vision cannot always be clearly separated from avision.
c. 1290. S. Eng. Leg., I. 52. Seint Edward cam al-so aniȝht ase in a visioun To an holi man þat þere was neiȝ.
a. 1300. Cursor M., 4454. Als þai lai in þat prisun, A-naght þam mete a visiun.
1338. R. Brunne, Chron. (1810), 65. Who so lokes his life, & redis his vision, What vengeance ordeyned was on Inglond to be don.
c. 1340. Hampole, Pr. Consc., 4369. Þis was þat Iohan saw in a vision Of hym þat semed þe virgyn son.
1387. Trevisa, Higden (Rolls), III. 113. Þat ȝere byfel þe secounde siȝt and visioun of Daniel, of þe aungel þat delyuerede þe children out of þe ouene.
c. 1430. Lydg., Min. Poems (Percy Soc.), 98. This prophete … Be a visioune so hevenly and divyne, Toke a chalice.
c. 1450. Mirk’s Festial, 17. When he had told þe kyng of þys vysion, þe kyng made preche hit ouer all þe reme.
1526. Pilgr. Perf. (W. de W., 1531), 3. The seruaunt of god Moyses had moost hye reuelacyons & visyons.
1560. Daus, trans. Sleidane’s Comm., 65. Secrete teachers that fayned themselves to see visions, and to have talke with God.
1584. Lyly, Sappho, IV. iii. 56. I haue had many phantastical visions, for euen now slumbring by your beddes side, mee thought I was shadowed with a clowd.
1615. G. Sandys, Trav., 227. But behold an accident, which I rather thought at the first to haue bene a vision, then (as I found it) reall.
1669. Dryden, Tyrannick Love, I. i. Char. What did the Vision shew? Placid.… A Town besieg’d; and on the neighb’ring Plain Lay heaps of visionary Souldiers slain.
1711. Addison, Spect., No. 159, ¶ 8. I then turned again to the Vision which I had been so long contemplating.
1757. Gray, Bard, 107. Visions of glory, spare my aching sight.
1802. Leyden, Mermaid, xxvi. Like one that from a fearful dream Awakes,… Yet fears to find the vision true.
a. 1859. De Quincey, Dream Fugue, Wks. 1897, XIII. 319. On the ocean,… the unknown lady from the dreadful vision, and I myself are floating.
1860. Pusey, Min. Proph., 8. In the vision, God is understood to have represented things to come, as a picture to the prophet’s mind.
b. Without article. (Cf. AVISION 2.)
13[?]. Seuyn Sages (W.), 3809. Als he lay opon a nyght In a dreme, than thoght him right That he was warned in visiowne [etc.].
a. 1340. Hampole, Psalter, lxxxviii. 19. When þou sayd þat, þou spak in visyon, þat is, in pryue reuelacioun til prophetis.
c. 1420. Lydg., Assembly of Gods, 1621. To vndyrstand … the mater of Morpheus hys shewyng As he hath the ledde aboute in vysyon.
1508. Kennedie, Flyting w. Dunbar, 298. Ȝit of new tressone I can tell the tailis, That cumis on nycht in visioun in my sleip.
1671. Milton, P. R., I. 256. Just Simeon and Prophetic Anna, warn’d By Vision, found thee in the Temple.
1723. Pope, Lett. to Mrs. Cowper, 26 Sept., Wks. 1769, IX. 431. I could wish you tried something in the descriptive way on any subject you please, mixed with vision and moral.
1732. Waterland, Script. Vind., III. 52. Upon the Foot of this Construction, it is supposed, that Isaiah in prophetic Dream or Vision, heard God speaking to him.
1813. Scott, Rokeby, III. xix. Nor do I boast the art renown’d, Vision and omen to expound.
1856. Stanley, Sinai & Pal., ii. (1858), 132. Such, not in vision, but in the most certain reality, was that double view of Jerusalem from Mount Olivet.
c. A mental concept of a distinct or vivid kind; an object of mental contemplation, esp. of an attractive or fantastic character; a highly imaginative scheme or anticipation.
1592. Timme, Ten Eng. Lepers, E iv. In the sayde hypocriticall Pharisei then, we see a certaine phantasticall vision, shewing that in forme which it hath not in trueth.
1668. Temple, Wks. (1720), II. 60. I wish some of his Visions may not give it another Face than what it ought … to receive from the true present State of the Spanish Affairs.
1784. Cowper, Task, I. 451. Upon the ship’s tall side he stands, possess’d With visions prompted by intense desire.
1809. Campbell, Gert. Wyom., III. 5. And, in the visions of romantic youth, What years of endless bliss are yet to flow.
1855. Poultry Chron., II. 582/2. Visions of success floated before me all day.
1872. Yeats, Growth Comm., 212. The Dutch were not excited by those visions of American gold and silver which had inflamed the imagination of the Spaniards.
1876. Gladstone, Glean. (1879), II. 314. The splendid visions which his fancy shaped had taken possession of his mind.
d. A person seen in a dream or trance.
1611. Bible, Wisd. xvii. 4. Sadde visions appeared vnto them with heauie countenances.
1667. Milton, P. L., VIII. 367. The vision bright, As with a smile more brightn’d, thus repli’d.
1697. Dryden, Æneid, VII. 139. A more than mortal sound Invades his ears; and thus the vision spoke.
1727. De Foe, Syst. Magic, I. iv. (1840), 105. Ali … failed not to ask the vision how he should obtain his promised assistance in the like cases of difficulty.
1817. Scott, Harold, VI. xi. And thou, for so the Vision said, Must in thy Lord’s repentance aid.
e. transf. A person, scene, etc., of unusual beauty. (Cf. DREAM sb.2 3 b.)
1823. Scott, Quentin D., xii. Dost thou think it makes thee fit to be the husband of that beautiful vision?
1896. Westm. Gaz., 30 April, 2/1. The big dining room is … a vision of walnut and mahogany.
1901. Daily Chron., 29 June, 8/3. One girl was a remarkable vision in a creamy white cloth Empire coat.
2. The action or fact of seeing or contemplating something not actually present to the eye; mystical or supernatural insight or foresight.
1382. Wyclif, 1 Sam. iii. 1. In tho dais was noon opyn visioun.
c. 1420. Chron. Vilod., 2512. Þe same nyȝt þat seynt Dunstone to Salesbury come, He saw by vysione alle þat he saw here, & myche more.
c. 1491. Chast. Goddes Chyld., D iv a. The seconde kynde of vysion is callid Spyrytual vysion or Imagynatyf. Ibid., D iv b. In ye thirde vision yt is callid Intellectual.
1560. Bible (Genev.), Isaiah xxviii. 7. Thei faile in vision: thei stomble in iudgement.
1594. Hooker, Eccl. Pol., I. xi. 82. The first … beginning here with a weake apprehension of things not sene, endeth with the intuitiue vision of God in the world to come.
1604. E. G[rimstone], D’Acosta’s Hist. Indies, VII. xxiii. 567. It may be, that what the laborer reported, had happened vnto him by imaginary vision.
1657. J. Watt, Vind. Ch. Eng., 153. Ministers … neither have vision to foretell, nor power to confer, blessing.
1676. Dryden, Aurengzebe, I. i. If Love be Vision, mine has all the Fire Which in first Dreams, young Prophets does inspire.
a. 1745. Swift, Th. on Var. Subj., Wks. 1745, VIII. 273. Vision is the art of seeing things invisible.
1836. Macgillivray, Trav. Humboldt, i. 18. That truths faithfully extracted from the book of nature are alone calculated to enlarge the sphere of mental vision.
1871. Farrar, Witn. Hist., iii. 97. It needed, let us say, the divine vision of a Peter, and the inspired eloquence of a Paul, to burst the intolerable yoke.
1899. W. R. Inge, Chr. Mysticism, i. 14. Ecstasy or vision begins when thought ceases, to our consciousness, to proceed from ourselves.
3. The action of seeing with the bodily eye; the exercise of the ordinary faculty of sight, or the faculty itself. Also transf. (quot. 1854).
c. 1491. Chast. Goddes Chyld., D iv a. The fyrst is callyd a corporal vision be cause it is seen outwarde bi bodely eye wittes.
c. 1510. More, Picus, Wks. 20/2. Because that our felicitie is fulfilled in the vision and fruicion of the humanitie of Christ.
c. 1600. Shaks., Sonn., cxiii. For it [sc. my eye] no forme deliuers to the heart … Nor his owne vision houlds what it doth catch.
1644. Hammond, Pract. Catech., I. iii. (1646), 14. Faith here is turned into Vision there.
1676. Hale, Contempl., I. 71. A means whereby he might be restored … to blessedness and the vision of his Creator.
1704. Norris, Ideal World, II. iii. 201. Vision in itself is the having or perceiving an idea representatively material in consequence of a certain impression made by light upon that expansion of the optick nerve which is at the bottom of the eye.
1718. J. Chamberlayne, Relig. Philos. (1730), I. xii. § 25. Whether he ever considered the manner how Vision is performed.
1774. M. Mackenzie, Maritime Surv., 58. The Distance of the Eye and the Thickness of the Lines should, by previous Trial, be suited to distinct Vision.
1832. Brewster, Nat. Magic, iii. 48. Even the vision of natural objects presents to us insurmountable difficulties. Ibid. (1854), More Worlds, xi. 180. The globular nebulæ of Sir W. Herschel have disappeared as globes under the sharp vision of Lord Rosse’s telescope.
1879. Harlan, Eyesight, iii. 31. To understand anything of the physiology of vision, it is necessary to have a general idea of the way in which images of objects are formed by refracting surfaces.
b. An instance of seeing; a look.
1855. Bain, Senses & Int., II. ii. § 11. With the blind the case is different;… their visions of the surfaces of all things are visions of touch.
a. 1861. T. Woolner, My Beautiful Lady, Tolling Bell, ix. Our visions met, when pityingly she flung Her passionate arms about me.
† 4. A visage or vizard. Obs. rare.
In both instances perh. a misprint for visor.
1563. Homilies, II. Excess of Apparel, Ggg iiij b. As thoughe a wyse, and a christian husband, should delyte to see his wife in such paynted, and florished visions [1623 visages], which common harlots mostly do vse.
a. 1701. Sedley, Tyrant of Crete, V. ii. Methinks, till this day the times had Likewise a vision on, and look’d not with A true face before.
5. A thing actually seen; an object of sight.
1611. Shaks., Wint. T., I. ii. 270. Ha’ not you seene Camillo? (But that’s past doubt: you haue,… For to a Vision so apparant, Rumor Cannot be mute.)
6. attrib. and Comb., as vision-field, machinery, -monger; vision-haunted, -seeing, -struck adjs.
1708. Shaftesb., Charac. (1711), I. 50. Whether the matter of Apparition be true or false, the Symptoms are the same … in the Person who is Vision-struck.
1718. Entertainer, Ded. A iij. The Atheist and the Infidel … are reinforc’d by the Quaker, the Vision-monger and the Seeker.
c. 1823. Mrs. Hemans, Valkyriur Song. The Sea-king woke from the troubled sleep Of a vision-haunted night.
1827. Pusey, Lett., in Liddon, Life (1893), I. vi. 131. A half-distracted, visionary and vision-seeing mystic.
1880. Academy, 3 July, 7. Vision-field contraction is illustrated by the case of a patient [etc.].
1895. A. Nutt, Voy. Bran, I. x. 250. Early Christian literature likewise supplies similar descriptions without employing the Vision machinery.
