blinds

1. 1
   noun

   Plural of blind.

   The hotel installed blackout blinds in every guest room.

   Dust had collected along the slats of the old wooden blinds.

   Note

   A plural that serves every noun sense of blind, not just the window coverings with their cloth or slats. It also names the hides where people wait to watch wildlife, the destination signs on buses and trams, and the subterfuges meant to mislead the eye. The same spelling is the verb meaning 'makes unable to see', so the blinds is a noun phrase, while it blinds is a verb.

2. 2
   verb

   Third-person singular simple present of blind.

   The glare off the snow blinds hikers who forget their goggles.

   Loyalty sometimes blinds a manager to a colleague's faults.

   Note

   The -s form carries every verb sense of blind, including some far from eyesight. A road crew blinds fresh paving by covering it with sand and fine gravel so that the joints between the stones fill. An obsolete slang use meant simply to curse, so older texts may use the verb with no connection to sight at all.

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