dazzle
/ˈdæzəl/
dazzle verb: to confuse or overpower the sight of (someone or something, such as a sensor) by means of excessive brightness.
Verb
dazzle (third-person singular simple present dazzles, present participle dazzling, simple past and past participle dazzled)
- To confuse or overpower the sight of (someone or something, such as a sensor) by means of excessive brightness.
- Dazzled by the headlights of the lorry, the deer stopped in the middle of the street.
- Antidrone lasers can burn or dazzle a drone's sensors.
- To render incapable of thinking clearly; to overwhelm with showiness or brilliance.
- The delegates were dazzled by the originality of his arguments.
- To be overpowered by light; to be confused by excess of brightness.
- For we see, that an over-light maketh the Eyes dazel, insomuch as perpetual looking against the Sun, would cause blindness.1626, Francis Bacon, Sylva Sylvarum: or, A Natural History in Ten Centuries
- […] I dare not trust these Eyes; / They Dance in Mists, and dazle with surprize.1675, John Dryden, Aureng-zebe: A Tragedy
Noun
dazzle (countable and uncountable, plural dazzles)
- A light of dazzling brilliancy.
- Showy brilliance that may stop a person from thinking clearly.
- A herd of zebra.
- We were trying to stalk a dazzle of zebra which flashed in and out of a long strip of green and yellow fever trees, with an ostrich, its feathers flared like a ballet skirt around its dancing legs, on their flank, when suddenly […]1958, Laurens Van der Post, The lost world of the Kalahari: with the great and the little memory (1998 David Coulson edition)
- Zebras move in herds which are known as "dazzles." When a lion approaches a dazzle of zebras during its hunt, […]2009, Darren Paul Shearer, In You God Trusts, page 176
- Dazzle camouflage.
dazzle meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Urdu and Bengali
dazzle in Hindi
- a very bright light
- चकाचौंध cakācaundh
dazzle in Tamil
- பகட்டு, பளபளப்பு, மினுமினுப்பு, அசத்தல், பளிச்சிடு, பளீரென ஒளிர்ந்திடு
dazzle in Urdu
- بدحواسی, چکا چوند, خیرگی
dazzle in Bengali
- চোখ ধাঁধানো
More languagesFewer languages
- dazzle in Malayalam
- കണ്ണു കൂച്ചിപ്പിടിക്കുക, മഹാപ്രഭയുളളതായിരിക്കുക, വിസ്മയം ജനിപ്പിക്കുക
- dazzle in Kannada
- ಕಣ್ಣುಕುಕ್ಕು, ಕೋರಯ್ಸು, ಕೋರಯಿಸು, ಕೋರೈಸು
Examples of dazzle in a sentence
- Those heavenly shapes / Will dazzle now the earthly, with their blaze / Insufferably bright.1667, John Milton, “Book IX”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker […]; [a]nd by Robert...
- An unreflected light did never yet / Dazzle the vision feminine.1834, Henry Taylor, Philip van Artevelde, volume 1, page 45:
- I reached the lodge as a dazzle of zebras trotted across the dirt road into thorny scrub by the game fence, and a lone kudu gazed up at me from the short grass near the swimming pool.2010, Douglas Rogers, The Last Resort: A Memoir of Mischief and Mayhem on a Family Farm in Africa, page 22:
- A group of zebras can be called a dazzle.2019 June 6, “A gaggle, a confusion and a conspiracy - bizarre animal collective group names”, in BBC:
Synonyms of dazzle
Forms of dazzle
| Verb | |
|---|---|
| third-person singular present | dazzles |
| present participle | dazzling |
| past participle | dazzled |
| past | dazzled |
| Noun | |
| plural | dazzles |
Origin of dazzle
From daze + -le, a frequentative form.
Words formed from dazzle
Phrases with dazzle
Words that rhyme with dazzle
Questions about dazzle
- What does dazzle mean?
- Dazzle means to confuse or overpower the sight of (someone or something, such as a sensor) by means of excessive brightness.
- What is dazzle in Hindi?
- Dazzle in Hindi is चकाचौंध (cakācaundh). See Dazzle meaning in Hindi.
- How do you use dazzle in a sentence?
- Those heavenly shapes / Will dazzle now the earthly, with their blaze / Insufferably bright.
- What part of speech is dazzle?
- Dazzle can be a verb or a noun.
- How do you pronounce dazzle?
- Dazzle is pronounced /ˈdæzəl/.
- What is the past tense of dazzle?
- The past tense of dazzle is dazzled.
Words near dazzle in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: dazzle (page history and authors); dazzle (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); dazzle (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); dazzle (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); dazzle (Malayalam Wiktionary) (page history and authors); dazzle (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors). 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.
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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-dazzle.wav.
Cite this entry: “dazzle.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/dazzle. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.