blinding

Pluralblindings (some meanings)

1. 1
   adjective

   So intensely bright that it seems capable of taking away one's sight.

   A blinding flash lit up the room a second before the thunder.

   The headlights were blinding, and she had to shield her eyes.

   Similardazzling, glaring, brilliant

   Oppositedim, faint

   Note

   A participle hardened into an adjective, blind plus -ing, in which the blindness is threatened rather than done. It sits naturally before nouns of light, as in a blinding flash or a blinding glare, and H. Rider Haggard's She: A History of Adventure (1886–87) lets it fill a whole glorious cloud of light. Where sight is actually lost, the word belongs to the literal 'making blind' meaning.

2. 2
   verb

   Present participle of blind.

   The glare off the water was blinding the sailors on deck.

   Tear gas drifted across the square, blinding the protesters.

   Note

   Two jobs share this spelling. As a participle it builds progressive tenses (the glare was blinding them); as a gerund it names the action (blinding the guards came first). The verb covers more than sight. It can mean to darken or conceal, and road builders blind fresh paving with sand and fine gravel, which is where the road-surfacing noun comes from.

3. 3
   adjective

   Depriving someone of sight, or of clear judgment and understanding.

   A blinding devotion to the leader left no room for doubt.

   The chemical had a blinding effect, leaving the workers unable to see.

   Note

   What matters here is the effect, not the brightness, so even darkness can be blinding. In Louis Joseph Vance's "An Outsider" (1914) a woman gropes her way through blinding darkness. Tears and snow work the same way, by getting between the eye and the world. The meaning then stretches to the mind: whatever keeps a person from seeing clearly, such as a devotion or a passion, blinds them.

4. 4
   adjectiveslangUK

   Excellent; wonderfully good.

   The band put on a blinding show last night.

   She cooked us a blinding meal after the match.

   Similarbrilliant, fantastic, superb, terrific, cracking

   Oppositeterrible, awful, dreadful

   Note

   British slang that turns dazzle into praise, much as brilliant does. It is happy to stand alone as a reply: "How's it going?" "Blinding, mate." It is warm, casual and matey. It fits the pub or the terraces, not a reference letter, and outside the UK it may simply puzzle listeners.

5. 5
   noununcountable

   The act of depriving a person of sight.

   The blinding of captives appears in several ancient chronicles.

   The explosion led to the blinding of two factory workers.

6. 6
   adverbnonstandard

   To an extreme degree; extremely.

   The new engine is blinding quick off the line.

   By then it was blinding clear that the plan had failed.

   Similarextremely, incredibly

   Note

   An intensifier that drops the -ly and sits straight in front of an adjective: blinding obvious, blinding fast, blinding bright. Writers as different as Régis Debray (1983) and Steven Barnes (1997) use it, and the Guardian wrote of "the blinding obvious fact" in 2005. Because it counts as nonstandard, careful formal prose prefers blindingly.

7. 7
   nouncountable

   A light layer of sand or gravel spread over a newly built road to fill holes in its surface.

   Workers laid a blinding of fine gravel before the road was opened.

   The blinding sealed the tiny holes left across the surface.

   Note

   A road builder's word with nothing to do with eyes. It comes from the verb blind in its paving sense: spreading sand and fine gravel over new work so the joints and holes fill up. The coat "blinds" the gaps by closing them. It takes an article and a material: a blinding of gravel, a blinding of sand.

8. 8
   nouncountable

   A light scattering of sand or stone chips spread over a surface that has just been tarred.

   The roadmen laid a blinding of chips as soon as the tar was poured.

   A fine blinding covered the sticky surface before any cars drove over it.

   Note

   On a tarred road the grit has a different job from the gap-filling coat. It is a sprinkling over fresh tar rather than a fill for holes, and stone chippings join the sand. Road crews lay it as soon as the tar is down, so the sticky surface is covered before traffic runs on it.

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