Word.ws English Dictionary

blur

UK/ˈblɜː/

More pronunciations (1)Fewer pronunciations

British/bləː/

blur verb: to make indistinct or hazy, to obscure or dim.

blur: to make indistinct or hazy, to obscure or dim
Image: Robert Lawton, CC BY-SA 2.5, via Wikimedia Commons

Verb

blur (third-person singular simple present blurs, present participle blurring, simple past and past participle blurred)

  1. To make indistinct or hazy, to obscure or dim.
    • to blur a photograph (by moving the camera while taking it)
    • As we saw in the case of Lukács, it is characteristic of this tradition to blur the distinction between foreseeing the future and creating it.1978 [1976], Leszek Kołakowski, translated by P[aul] S[teven] Falla, Main Currents of Marxism, volume III: The Breakdown, Oxford: Clarendon Press, translation of Główne nurty marksizmu: rozkład (in...
    Synonyms:
    fuzz, pixelate, smooth
  2. To smear, stain or smudge.
    • to blur a manuscript (by handling it while damp)
    Synonyms:
    besmear, blot, tarnish, assoil, beclart, bedaub, bedirty, imbrue (especially with blood), bedizen, befile
  3. (intransitive) To become indistinct.
  4. To cause imperfection of vision in; to dim; to darken.
    • His eyes are blurred with the lightning's glare.1819, Joseph Rodman Drake, The Culprit Fay
  5. (obsolete, transitive) To sully; to stain; to blemish, as reputation.
    • Sarcasms may eclipse thine own, / But cannot blur my lost renown.1662 (indicated as 1663), [Samuel Butler], “[The First Part of Hudibras]”, in Hudibras. The First and Second Parts. […], London: […] John Martyn and Henry Herringman, […], published 1678; republished...
  6. (transitive) To transfer the input focus away from.
    • Then give this box focus to blur the first one: […]2003, John Pollock, JavaScript: A Beginner's Guide, Second Edition, page 175
    • These form elements need to have an onFocus event handler to blur the current focus.2001, Martin Webb, Michel Plungjan, Keith Drakard, Instant JavaScript, page 678
    Synonyms:
    unfocus
  7. To use a sign, image, expression, etc. sufficiently close to a trademarked one that it causes confusion between them.

Noun

blur (countable and uncountable, plural blurs)

  1. A smear, smudge or blot.
  2. Something that appears hazy or indistinct.
    • The surroundings went by in a blur.
    • Maccario, it was evident, did not care to take the risk of blundering upon a picket, and a man led them by twisting paths until at last the hacienda rose blackly before them. Appleby could see it dimly, a blur of shadowy buildings with the ridge of roof parapet alone cutting hard and sharp against...1907 January, Harold Bindloss, chapter 26, in The Dust of Conflict, 1st Canadian edition, Toronto, Ont.: McLeod & Allen, →OCLC
  3. (uncountable) Haziness, blurriness.
    • Unfortunately, a small artificial pupil also tends to increase the amount of diffraction somewhat, but this increase in blur is considerably smaller than the decrease that results from the control of other factors.1978, Stanley Coren, Joan S. Girgus, Seeing Is Deceiving: The Psychology of Visual Illusions, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc., →ISBN, page 82
    • The second option (right-hand page) features a sharp background and a cyclist who appears as a smudge of blur.2014, Albrecht Rissler, Photographic Composition: Principles of Image Design, Rocky Nook, Inc., →ISBN
  4. (obsolete) A moral stain or blot.
    • […]with her raillyng sette a great blurre on myne honesty1548, Nicolas Udall, The first tome or volume of the Paraphrase of Erasmus vpon the newe testamente

Adjective

blur (comparative more blur, superlative most blur)

  1. (Manglish, Singlish) Lacking awareness; clueless or confused.
    • If a Singaporean gets frustrated at your stupidity, he can scold you for being blur as sotong (clueless as a squid).2002 July 22, Hwee Hwee Tan, “A War of Words Over ‘Singlish’”, in Time, archived from the original on 28 Jan 2025
    • Even if you don't know, just pretend as if you know-lah Mike. You are embarrassing me you know. If you are so blur like this, how to accept you as my sidekick man?2007, Elangovan, P, Singapore, →ISBN, →OCLC, page 47

blur meaning in Tamil, Urdu, Bengali and Malayalam

blur in Tamil

உருக் கெடு, உருக்கெடு, கறை, தெளிவினைமை, தெளிவின்மை, மங்கலாக்கு

blur in Urdu

دھبہ

blur in Bengali

অস্পষ্টতা

blur in Malayalam

blur
മങ്ങൽ maṅṅal
More languagesFewer languages
blur in Kannada
ಮಸುಕು, ಮಬ್ಬು, ಅಸ್ಪಷ್ಟತೆ, ಮಸುಕಾಗು
blur in Punjabi
ਧੁੰਦਲਾ ਕਰਨ ਲਈ, ਧੁੰਦਲੀ ਕਰਨ ਲਈ
blur in Nepali
धुंधला, धुँधलो गर्न, धुंधला गर्न
blur in Arabic
غَشَّى ḡaššā, غَبَّش ḡabbaš, لَطَّخَ laṭṭaḵa, بَقَّعَ baqqaʕa

Examples of blur in a sentence

  • Blurring one window and focusing on another window yields the same result of sending the window to the back of the pile.2007, Danny Goodman, JavaScript Bible, page 273:
  • A manual way to blur a text object is to press the Tab key, which advances focus to the next field in order and removes it from the current field (blurring it).2010, Chuck Easttom, Advanced JavaScript, page 329:
  • Appleby could see it dimly, a blur of shadowy buildings with the ridge of roof parapet alone cutting hard and sharp against the clearing sky.1907 January, Harold Bindloss, chapter 26, in The Dust of Conflict, 1st Canadian edition, Toronto, Ont.: McLeod & Allen, →OCLC:
  • The third set passed in a bit of a blur, the fourth, which led to the second tie-break, was the most dramatic of the match.2012 June 29, Kevin Mitchell, “Roger Federer back from Wimbledon 2012 brink to beat Julien Benneteau”, in The Guardian, archived from the...

All 40 example sentences with blur

Synonyms of blur

30 more synonymsFewer synonyms

Antonyms

All synonyms and antonyms of blur

Forms of blur

Verb
third-person singular presentblurs
present participleblurring
past participleblurred
pastblurred
Noun
pluralblurs
Adjective
comparativemore blur
superlativemost blur

Past tense of blur: blurred

Plural of blur: blurs

Origin of blur

From earlier blurre, probably an alteration of blear, from Middle English bleren, from Old English *blerian (attested in āblered (“made bare, made bald”)), from Proto-West Germanic *blaʀjan, from Proto-Germanic *blazjaną (“to make pale”), from Proto-Germanic *blasaz (“pale”). Compare Scots blore, bloar (“to blur, cover with blots”), Low German bleeroged (“blear-eyed”). More at blear.

Words formed from blur

Words that rhyme with blur

48 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about blur

What does blur mean?
Blur means to make indistinct or hazy, to obscure or dim.
What is blur in Tamil?
Blur in Tamil is உருக் கெடு, உருக்கெடு, கறை. See Blur meaning in Tamil.
How do you use blur in a sentence?
Blurring one window and focusing on another window yields the same result of sending the window to the back of the pile.
What part of speech is blur?
Blur can be a verb, a noun or an adjective.
How do you pronounce blur?
Blur is pronounced /ˈblɜː/ (UK).
What is the past tense of blur?
The past tense of blur is blurred.

Words near blur in the dictionary

  1. blunts
  2. bluntslide
  3. bluntslides
  4. BLUP
  5. BLUPs
  6. blur
  7. blur the line
  8. blur the lines
  9. BluRay
  10. blurb
  11. blurbable

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: blur (page history and authors); blur (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); blur (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); blur (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); മങ്ങൽ (Malayalam) (page history and authors); blur (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors); blur (Punjabi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); blur (Nepali, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-blur.ogg.

Cite this entry: “blur.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/blur. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.