Blind

subs. (common).—1.  The night time; IN THE BLIND = at night.

  2.  (colloquial).—A pretence; a shift; an action by which one’s real purpose is concealed; that which obstructs; a ‘make believe.’

  1663.  DRYDEN, The Wild Gallant, iii. He … took your court to her, only as a BLIND to your affection for me.

  1694.  CONGREVE, The Double Dealer, ii., 5. I know you don’t love Cynthia, only as a BLIND for your passion to me.

  1703.  CENTLIVRE, The Beau’s Duel, I., i. (1872), i., 70. Am I publish’d to the world as a BLIND for his designs?

  1877.  E. L. LINTON, The World Well Lost, xxviii. The excuse was too palpably a BLIND to be accepted as a reason.

  1889.  Answers, July 13, 104, col. 3. The Major and the Captain he referred to in his letters were mere ‘BLINDS.’ The Captain relied upon the fact that not one person in a dozen took the trouble to apply to these gentlemen.

  3.  (printers’).—A paragraph [¶] mark is so called; from the eye of the reversed ‘P’ being filled up.

  Adj. (old).—1.  Tipsy; in liquor: see SCREWED.

  1630.  TAYLOR (‘The Water Poet’), Workes, s.v.

  2.  (old).—Transient; not durable: as writing in ink that quickly faded; obscure: cf. NARES’ Anonymous manuscripts, supported by quot. 1613.

  1563.  FOXE, Acts and Monuments [CATTLEY], iv. 613. [What we call a lame excuse appears as a BLIND excuse]: Which BLIND excuse pleased the commons nothing at all.

  1579.  GOSSON, The Schoole of Abuse. A BLIND village in comparison of Athens.

  1585.  FLEMING, The Nomenclator, 9b. A BLIND letter that will in short time be worne out.

  1613.  R. FENTON, A Treatise of Usurie, p. 11. These fantasies we finde in certain BLINDE manuscripts, without name or author, which walke under hand like the pestilence in the darke.

  BLIND AS A BRICKBAT, adv. phr. (colloquial).—As blind as may be—mentally or physically; dense.

  1849.  DICKENS, David Copperfield, III., 97. The old scholar … is as BLIND AS A BRICKBAT.

  WHEN THE DEVIL IS BLIND, adv. phr. (common).—Never: see QUEEN DICK.

  1772.  BRIDGES, A Burlesque Translation of Homer, 83.

  TO GO IT BLIND, verb. phr. (common).—To enter upon an undertaking without thought as to the result, or inquiry beforehand: from ‘blind poker,’ where the cards are betted upon before being looked at.

  1848.  J. R. LOWELL, The Biglow Papers, II., 118.

  1871.  DE VERE, Americanisms, 328. Blind Poker has given rise to the very common phrase, to GO IT BLIND, used whenever an enterprise is undertaken without previous inquiry.

  1882.  GENERAL SHERMAN, Memoirs, I, 342. I know that in Washington I am incomprehensible, because at the outset of the war I would not GO IT BLIND, and rush headlong into a war unprepared and with an utter ignorance of its extent and purpose.

  1888.  Chicago Ledger, May 12. ‘And so you’ve married a jewel, have you, Tom?’ ‘I have, for a fact, Dick.’ ‘Lucky dog! You’re a man in a million. Mighty few GO IT BLIND and fare as well as you’ve done.’ ‘I didn’t GO IT BLIND. I employed a detective, and he managed to get board in the family.’

  THE BLIND EAT MANY A FLY, (old).—An old proverb; Heywood wrote a play under this title. The elder Heywood introduces it in his collection, and it also occurs in Northbrooke’s Treatise, ed. Collier, 60, 117.

  TO BLIND A TRAIL, verb phr. (American).—To conceal a person’s foot-prints, or to give them the appearance of going in a different direction; and figuratively, to deceive a person by putting him on the wrong track.