Blindness

How to spell blindness

9 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce blindness

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does blindness mean?

1. nounThe condition of being unable to see, whether complete or partial.
2. nounA failure or refusal to recognise or understand something obvious.

Blindness in a sentence

• The disease can cause permanent blindness if left untreated.

• Their blindness to the warning signs cost the company millions.

• The charity funds research into preventable blindness in older patients.

• Reviewers criticised the report for its blindness to basic financial risks.

Where does blindness come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This is a native English word, descending directly from the Old English adjective 'blind', meaning unable to see, which sat firmly in the Germanic family alongside the Old Norse 'blindr', the Dutch 'blind', and the German 'blind'. Scholars trace the root to a Proto-Germanic form '*blindaz', and many connect it to ideas of being confused, dim, or clouded rather than purely lacking eyes, which is why 'blind' came to describe hidden or dead-end things too. The noun was built by adding the productive Old English suffix '-nes', the same ending that turns 'dark' into 'darkness' and 'kind' into 'kindness', signalling a state or condition. By Middle English the spelling had settled close to its modern shape, and the figurative sense of failing to notice or understand grew naturally beside the literal loss of sight. The spelling is reassuringly regular: simply attach '-ness' to 'blind' with no letters dropped or doubled.

How the word is built

• blind (sightless)
• -ness (state or quality, forming a noun)