| blind | 1. To make blind; to deprive of sight or discernment. "To blind the truth and me." "A blind guide is certainly a great mischief; but a guide that blinds those whom he should lead is . . . A much greater." (South) 2. To deprive partially of vision; to make vision difficult for and painful to; to dazzle. "Her beauty all the rest did blind." (P. Fletcher) 3. To darken; to obscure to the eye or understanding; to conceal; to deceive. "Such darkness blinds the sky." (Dryden) "The state of the controversy between us he endeavored, with all his art, to blind and confound." (Stillingfleet) 4. To cover with a thin coating of sand and fine gravel; as a road newly paved, in order that the joints between the stones may be filled. Origin: Blinded; Blinding. 1. Destitute of the sense of seeing, either by natural defect or by deprivation; without sight. "He that is strucken blind can not forget The precious treasure of his eyesight lost." (Shak) 2. Not having the faculty of discernment; destitute of intellectual light; unable or unwilling to understand or judge; as, authors are blind to their own defects. "But hard be hardened, blind be blinded more, That they may stumble on, and deeper fall." (Milton) 3. Undiscerning; undiscriminating; inconsiderate. "This plan is recommended neither to blind approbation nor to blind reprobation." (Jay) 4. Having such a state or condition as a thing would have to a person who is blind; not well marked or easily discernible; hidden; unseen; concealed; as, a blind path; a blind ditch. 5. Involved; intricate; not easily followed or traced. "The blind mazes of this tangled wood." (Milton) 6. Having no openings for light or passage; as, a blind wall; open only at one end; as, a blind alley; a blind gut. 7. Unintelligible, or not easily intelligible; as, a blind passage in a book; illegible; as, blind writing. 8. <botany> Abortive; failing to produce flowers or fruit; as, blind buds; blind flowers. Blind alley, an alley closed at one end; a cul-de-sac. Blind axle, an axle which turns but does not communicate motion. Blind beetle, one of the insects apt to fly against people, especially. at night. <zoology> Blind cat, a level or drainage gallery which has a vertical shaft at each end, and acts as an inverted siphon. <botany> Blind nettle, the point in the retina of the eye where the optic nerve enters, and which is insensible to light. Blind tooling, in bookbinding and leather work, the indented impression of heated tools, without gilding; called also blank tooling, and blind blocking. Blind wall, a wall without an opening; a blank wall. Origin: AS.; akin to D, G, OS, Sw, & Dan. Blind, Icel. Blindr, Goth. Blinds; of uncertain origin. Source: Websters Dictionary (01 Mar 1998) |
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| blind boil | A furuncle that does not have a fluctuant central point; it appears as a dull red painful papule. (05 Mar 2000) |
| blind fistula | A fistula that ends in a cul-de-sac, being open at one extremity only. Synonym: incomplete fistula. (05 Mar 2000) |
| blind foramen of frontal bone | <anatomy> Blind or caecal foramen of the frontal bone; the blind foramen formed immediately anterior to the crista galli by a notch at the lower end of the frontal crest and its articulation with the ethmoid bone. It is insignificant postnatally, but gives passage to vessels during development. Synonym: foramen caecum ossis frontalis, blind foramen of frontal bone, caecal foramen of frontal bone. (05 Mar 2000) |
| blind foramen of the tongue | <anatomy> A median pit on the dorsum of the posterior part of the tongue, from which the limbs of a V-shaped furrow run forward and outward; it is the site of origin of the thyroid gland and subsequent thyroglossal duct in the embryo. Synonym: foramen caecum linguae, blind foramen of the tongue, caecal foramen of the tongue, Morgagni's foramen, pleuroperitoneal foramen. (05 Mar 2000) |
| blind gut | <anatomy> A blind pouch-like commencement of the colon in the right lower quadrant of the abdomen at the end of the small intestine. The appendix is a diverticulum that extends off the caecum. (13 Nov 1997) |
| blind headache | <disease> An often familial symptom complex of periodic attacks of vascular headache, usually temporal and unilateral in onset, commonly associated with irritability, nausea, vomiting, constipation or diarrhoea and often photophobia, attacks are preceded by constriction of the cranial arteries, usually with resultant prodromal sensory (especially ocular) symptoms and commence with the vasodilation that follows. Origin: Gr. Hemikrania = an affection of half of the head (18 Nov 1997) |
| blind loop syndrome | <syndrome> Malabsorption, especially of vitamin b12 or folic acid, due to metabolic competition by bacteria proliferating in a segment of small intestine excluded from normal peristaltic movement; it may occur as a postoperative complication of side-to-side anastomosis of intestine, as a result of intestinal diverticula, fistula, etc. (12 Dec 1998) |
| blind nasotracheal intubation | Passage of a tracheal tube through the nose and into the trachea without using a laryngoscope. (05 Mar 2000) |
| blind passage | Successive transfer of an agent through cultures or animals without incidence of either replication or disease. (05 Mar 2000) |
| blind spot | The negative scotoma in the visual field, corresponding to the optic disk. Synonym: blind spot. (05 Mar 2000) |
| blind staggers | Subacute selenium poisoning in animals. (05 Mar 2000) |
| blind study | A study in which the experimenter is unaware of which group is subject to which procedure. (05 Mar 2000) |
| blind test | A method of testing in which an independent observer records the results of any test, drug, placebo, or procedure without knowing the identity of the samples or what result might be expected. (05 Mar 2000) |
| Mariotte's blind spot | The portion of the optic nerve seen in the fundus with the ophthalmoscope. It is formed by the meeting of all the retinal ganglion cell axons as they enter the optic nerve. Because the retina at the optic disk has no photoreceptors there is a corresponding blind spot in the visual field. (12 Dec 1998) |